


Memories in Meteo

by Galsult



Series: The Worlds of Lylat [5]
Category: Star Fox Series
Genre: Copious Backstory Revelations, M/M, Mystery, relationship drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-07-08 21:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19876672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galsult/pseuds/Galsult
Summary: As Fox and Wolf struggle to acclimate their teams, and to each other, a mysterious illness aboard a Cornerian research station prompts an old friend to seek their help.





	1. Chapter 1

……….

The weary rabbit rubbed her eyes, fruitlessly trying to stave off sleep. She thought on her dilemma as the floaters receded from her vision: she was on her third cup of coffee already that night, and while another would surely wake her up for good, it’d also make her jittery – and she did _not_ like being jittery while at work.

Or at all, really.

So she resigned herself to her somnolent fate with a sigh, looking once more at the softly-glowing computer screen – too bright for the dark room, really – and trying to make sense of the copious figures displayed there. The data was basic. Trivial, even. So trivial, in fact, that parceling through it elicited another yawn.

The soporific effect of sorting through the data was dispelled by a pert knock on the doorframe leading to her office (if the cramped, little space could even be called that). It was more of a formality than anything, seeing as her door was wide open and she knew the lazy aardvark standing there as well as the back of her own hand at this point.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”, he asked casually, already knowing the answer.

She shot him an exhausted smile. “Only a very tired rabbit trying to unlock the mysteries of gravity.”

“So that’s a ‘no’, then?”

She laughed, and it sounded a little frayed to her ears. She really needed to get some sleep. “I could use a distraction”, she confided. “The data isn’t going anywhere.”

The aardvark, Harry, crossed his arms, an expression of curiosity on his face. “How’s it coming along, anyway? The interpretation.”

She sighed as she got up out her seat with a stretch. “Tediously.”

Harry breathed out an understated laugh of his own. “If it _wasn’t_ tedious, we’d be in trouble. As long as it fits the model…”

“…Fits the model”, she intoned right along with him as he said it, good-naturedly and exasperatedly in equal measure, “we’ll be fine.”

“You know me too well”. The aardvark reached into the pocket of his lab coat and withdrew a beige-colored slip. “Now, how about we go grab a midnight bite?” He waved the meal voucher in her face and she batted it away.

“And give myself food-poisoning? I don’t think so.”

He chuckled again. “What’s the researcher’s life without a bit of stomach illness? Live a little!”

She shook her head with a smile. “Alright, alright – I guess I could eat.” She drew her comm-device from her pants-pocket while Harry did an embarrassing little victory fist pump she desperately wished she’d caught on holo-film. “Let me ring up Sofia, she’s probably just getting up herself.”

Harry tried to hide his frown when she said the robin’s name, unsuccessfully. She knew the two of them didn’t… well, they didn’t _not_ get along per se, but they were always awkward around each other, as if the aardvark and avian were magnetic ends of the same polarity: repelling each other. She thought that was funny, given the two of them were as different as any two animals could possibly be. Maybe opposites really didn’t attract.

“I know you’re not a fan of her”, she said, raising a paw to cut him off before he had the chance to defend himself. “I’m not judging you for it – it’s just the both of you are my best friends on this station.” She smiled disarmingly, hoping to woo Harry over to her position. “It’s weird that my friends can’t be friends with each other.”

Harry clucked and folded his arms. “I just don’t think… Sofia is a very ‘tight’ person, as you might say.”

“You mean an anal-retentive, perfectionist bitch?”, she asked with a smile.

“Your words, not mine.”

She laughed. “Sofia would be the first person to tell you that herself, if you’d let her.”

“I _have_ let her – or tried to, anyway. We’re always very stilted around each other.” He chewed the inside of his lip. “I just don’t think we have anything in common.”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “You have me.”

He snorted a laugh. “A shared weakness is nothing to bond over.” He removed himself from the immediate farthest distance her paw could strike even as he said it. She shook her head at his behavior and dialed Sofia’s number.

She waited a moment, but as it went to the option to leave a message she knew the robin wouldn’t be picking up. “Guess you’re a lucky aardvark – seems like she’s still asleep.”

He couldn’t keep the visible relief from coloring his features. “Well, that’s a right shame.” He paused a beat for effect, as if he was meditating on that statement. “You think they’ll have any of those breakfast burritos this early?”

She rolled her eyes and swept past him, leaving him to catch up in her wake on the way to the cafeteria. “I have the voucher, you know! You need me to get your meal for free.”

……….

Their impromptu breakfast had gone as well as she could’ve hoped, given the nonexistent quality of the food, but the nascent pinpricks of anxiety were beginning to poke at her mind. She’d tried to call up Sofia several times now – the robin was every bit as stuck-up as she said she was, and the lagomorph had never known her to not respond like this.

Could it be…? _No_ , she decided, _not that_. _Not again, and certainly not to Sofia_.

Harry was prattling on about something, but she only caught the tail-end of it, distracted as she was. He must have noticed her mind was elsewhere, because he trailed off himself and gave her a somewhat worried look of his own. “You alright there, love?”

She nodded softly. “Yeah – I’m just surprised Sofia hasn’t responded yet. She doesn’t usually do stuff like this.”

The aardvark waved his paw dismissively. “Let her sleep in for a change; God knows she needs it. Maybe it’ll even improve her mood.”

She got up from the cafeteria table with a sigh and a shake of her head. “What did I say?”, he implored of her as she moved to deposit her tray on the pile.

“Don’t worry, Harry – it’s fine”, she assured him. “I’m just going to go check up on her.” _She’s fine_ , she told herself. _Fine_.

Harry got up after her, his expression a bit more somber. “You really are worried, aren’t you? Don’t you think that’s a bit… _overkill?_ I’m sure she’s alright.”

She smiled at him, trying to mask her own burgeoning miasma of unease. Harry didn’t know – he didn’t know because she’d never told him. In fact, _She_ only knew because Dr. Ostheim told her himself in strictest confidence, seeing as she was his top researcher on the station and he felt she should be in the loop. They’d managed to keep it under wraps as best they could – to the doctor’s relief, and her growing distress. He seemed to be more worried about what effect it would have on their research.

But her? She was worried about her fellow scientists.

How long could this go on before her silence ceased to be morally dubious, and crossed the line into out-and-out _wrong?_ Because she knew herself well, and she knew for a fact she wouldn’t be able to keep quiet if it reached that point.

“Hello? You still with me?”

She shook her head at the aardvark’s question, plastering a smile she knew must look fake on her face. “Yes, sorry – I was thinking about something else.”

He nodded slowly. “Uh huh. You know, now _you’re_ starting to worry _me_.”

“Don’t. I’m fine, I promise.” She wasn’t. “I’m going to go see if –”

“Yeah, yeah, if sleeping beauty is up yet. Well, I’m going to go down to the lab now that I’m awake. I’ll see you later…?” He cocked his head questioningly.

She nodded. “Of course – I’ll be down shortly.”

……….

The hallways of Station 09 were a far cry from those of the old research stations she’d virtually grown up on – Corneria had really kicked up their R&D budget after the Lylat War ended. She’d grown so used to shabby, minimally lit feldgrau walls that 09’s pristine plasteel felt disorienting at first. She’d quickly grown used to it though, and now she wondered if she could ever go back. Beyond the aesthetics, 09 had bells and whistles that the stations of yore couldn’t hope to hold a candle to – including fully-furnished suites for the researchers.

She was standing outside of one such suite right now, feeling a little bit like an idiot. Sofia was _fine_ : of course she was.

Her attempts to reassure herself didn’t stop her from knocking on the door though. “Sofia? It’s me – are you up yet?” She cringed at that question, realizing that, if the robin wasn’t up yet, she surely would be now that a determined rabbit just called out to her.

She was met with silence. Sofia was many things, a light sleeper among them.

 _It’s fine. It’s all fine_.

“Sofia?”, she tried again with a knock, a little more frenzied this time. “Are you alright?”

No response.

“…Sofia, I’m coming in.” Technically, she wasn’t supposed to have access to anyone’s suite besides her own; but the doctor felt it was prudent for her to have the ability given recent circumstances. She slid her key card into Sofia’s door-slot, and heard the electromagnetic lock open with a _click_. The automatic door slid open at her approach – and as it closed behind her, it wreathed the apartment in shadow.

“… _Sofia…?_ ”, she whispered, carefully making her way into the suite. She could hear faint noises coming from the robin’s room: strangled noises, watery noises.

 _Oh no_.

She walked over to her friend’s bedroom as quickly as she could given the lack of lighting and slid the door aside, hoping beyond hope that she was wrong. But it wasn’t to be: her worst fears were confirmed.

“Sofia…”, she said solemnly, quietly, as the robin rocked back and forth on top of her bed, tears trailing from her bloodshot eyes. The avian barely even responded as she entered, eyes darting wildly across the room, settling on everything and nothing. Her body was wracked with irregular shivers, and she was murmuring incomprehensible gibberish under her breath.

She quickly drew her comm-device and put in a call to the doctor. He was asleep, she knew, so it might be a bit before he picked up. She sat down next to Sofia and put her arm around her shoulders, knowing that the gesture meant nothing as the bird couldn’t even sense it. Perhaps it was more for her own benefit than anything else.

“ _Hello?_ ”, Dr. Ostheim’s quavering-yet-stately voice filled her ear.

“Doctor”, she said without welcome or preamble. “We have another one.”

There was a long pause on the other end, and then a sigh. “ _I was afraid it was this when you called me. Who?_ ”

“Sofia Giurdia.” The doctor knew she was an old classmate and close friend of hers.

“ _Oh dear – oh, I’m so sorry_.” She could hear the squeak and rattle of him getting out of bed from over the line. “ _I’ll get Boris and be over right away_.”

“Yes, doctor”, she responded, then hung up. She really wasn’t in the mood to talk with him any more at the moment.

She sat side-by-side with her distraught friend and thought. This was the fourth case so far: four cases too many. The doctor couldn’t possibly keep it under wraps anymore, and nor should he. They were out of their depth here, and she damn well knew it. She also knew the doctor wouldn’t see things her way, not yet, cautious as he was.

She sighed. “I’m going to have to take this into my own hands, Sofia”, she told the bird. The robin made no response, no sign she understood anything she had to say, continuing to murmur dark rumblings under her breath.

She was still holding onto her comm-device, so she decided to put in another call.

It’d been too long since they’d last caught up, anyway.

……….

# I

……….

Fox’s eyes opened slowly, and it took him a few seconds for his mind to catch up and realize he was awake. He turned onto his side with a groan and checked the chronometer – 4:23 AM, Corneria City time – and groaned a second time at the realization he’d only got an hour of sleep since the _last_ time he woke up and checked the time. He took it for a sign and decided to get up; obviously he wasn’t going to get any real sleep tonight.

Not that it surprised him. Today was _the day_ : the day Wolf and his crew were set to move aboard the Great Fox.

Temporarily, at least: Wolf needed somewhere for him and his team to operate out of while they acquired the funds necessary to buy a new home-ship. It wasn’t like Wolf was ‘moving in’ with Fox, not in _that_ sense. And yet Fox couldn’t help but shake the feeling in his gut that told him otherwise, even though he knew it was nothing but pure, unfounded emotion.

It was far too soon for them to take a step like that anyway, he thought. As his mind began to properly kick in (somewhere between brushing his teeth and putting on clothes), he was able to put a name to the emotion he felt when he considered Wolf moving in: anxious anticipation. He vulpine shook his head to clear his thoughts and left his room.

He glanced down both sides of the hallway. As far as he could tell, everyone else was still (unsurprisingly) asleep, not having any reason to get up so early on an off-mission free day. He quietly made his way down the cool metallic hall, and slowed his gait as he walked past the handful of currently unoccupied guest quarters that wouldn’t remain empty for much longer.

Wolf commed him the previous day to say he and the rest of Star Wolf would be arriving at some point in the late afternoon, after they took care of some business planetside. It’d been a few days since their mission on Fichina (and wasn’t that the story of the cycle: nothing but wall-to-wall coverage of the LCI’s shocking operation on the major news networks, and Fox couldn’t help but feel guilty for being so damn glad about it pushing the story about his and Wolf’s photo to the sidelines), and Star Wolf had spent them recuperating in a fairly nice hotel in the capital, courtesy of the Cornerian Navy. But now they were rested and ready to get back into the world, which meant it was moving day.

It was a complete spur-of-the-moment decision when Fox offered that to the lupine. Wolf had looked so broken after the mission that Fox felt a primal urge to try and piece him back together. The worst part was that he wasn’t sure if Wolf was just frayed from the mission, or if that was simply his permanent state of being and he was very good at masking it. So Fox offered him and his team a temporary safe haven, and Wolf accepted.

At the moment it filled him with a heady rush of pleasure, to be able to help someone he cared for so deeply, and to have that help gratefully taken in turn. He knew he’d be replaying their moment in that rain-soaked garden for years to come in his mind. But when he returned to his team, he realized he’d made a massive executive decision without any of their input, something he always tried to refrain from doing as much as possible. Krystal and Slippy seemed fine with it, if a little miffed Fox didn’t ask them first – but Falco…

He and Falco had a pretty rough argument about it. The avian wasn’t comfortable with Fox and Wolf’s burgeoning relationship to begin with, and he instantly went for the jugular, all but accusing Fox of acting like an unreasonable teenager with a crush and rolling over to let the lupine do what he pleased. Cooler heads ultimately prevailed, as Krystal was able to talk Fox down, and Slippy Falco, but he was still pissed with the boorish blue bird. Not a small part of that anger was rooted in the fact that it really was partially his fault for acting without telling any of them – he strongly suspected Falco would have been willing to go along if Fox had simply asked him first.

He was still beating himself over the head for that when he walked onto the bridge, activating a panoply of pinpoint lights adorning consoles scattered around the room in ringed tiers upon his entrance. Of course, the lights and consoles weren’t the _only_ thing to activate when he arrived.

“Good morning, captain”, a toneless robotic voice rang out from somewhere to Fox’s left.

The vulpine responded with a smile. “Morning to you too, ROB.”

The android ‘unpacked’ himself from the default box-shaped form he took when in sleep mode and began his business of going from console to console, ensuring everything was in place. Many people had no patience for robots, seeing them as nothing more than fancy appliances – and though that was technically true, Fox always talked to them with respect. “How did you sleep?”

ROB swiveled his head to face Fox, the rest of his body remaining facing the console. “My sleep cycle was sufficiently efficient. My energy reserves are at full capacity.”

Fox nodded. “That’s good to hear.” He knew ROB wasn’t capable of feeling emotion – no artificial intelligence was, at least none developed by Corneria. A few scientists claimed the Aparoids were proper AIs – intelligences in the true sense that happened to be synthetic – but as they were all (mercifully) dead, no one could conduct any research on that, and it remained an idle hypothesis. He still talked to ROB as if he were a person though, even referring to him as ‘him’ rather than ‘it’. He wasn’t the only one who did this, he knew: anthropomorphizing your on-board androids wasn’t uncommon in the Navy.

“What’s our status?”, Fox asked.

“Current bearing at [-x563.24 +y29.87 -rz8912.65] – designation: Cornerian space. Engines: normal. Life support systems: normal. Defenses: normal. Ship temperature: -”

“Alright, that’s enough”, Fox interrupted with a laugh.

“Status report cancelled”, the android flatly stated. “Anything else, captain?”

Fox thought about asking if Wolf had sent any messages, but decided against it. The lupine would’ve commed him directly, not the ship in general – and on the off-chance he did the latter, ROB would’ve told him straight off. No, he was only thinking of asking that because he was impatient: impatient in the same way he was as a child during the winter holiday, unable to sleep because he knew the next day meant presents. All of last night had been like that.

“I don’t think so, ROB. Let me know if anything comes up.”

The android turned back to his task. “Yes, captain.”

Fox looked out at the field of stars beyond the bridge’s large viewport, settling on the blue-green ball of Corneria occupying a nice chunk of the visible space. He wistfully wondered where Wolf was down there right now – what he was doing, what he was thinking.

He imagined Wolf calmly waking up to stray ray of sunlight peaking through the curtains of a fancy hotel room, and let the warm idea fill him with warmth in turn.

……….

“ _Shit_ ”, Wolf cursed as he stepped in a pile of shit.

He lifted his boot upward to check the underside of its sole. He always insisted on wearing boots with exaggerates spikes due to the extra traction they provided, but it made cleaning them a difficult process. As he assessed the damage, he realized he was looking at a solid half-hour of digging crap out of his footwear ahead of him.

“ _Shit_ ”, he cursed again at the realization.

“Careful with your language – you might scare off our seller”, Panther warned him.

Wolf grunted. “Yeah, God knows farmers are a real uptight lot as a rule. I’m sure some cuss words’ll be a deal-breaker”.

He let his boot back to the ground with a sigh and continued his trek forward to the farmstead. It wasn’t all bad: autumn was fast approaching in Corneria’s southern hemisphere, which meant the early morning air had a bracing, brisk quality about it that Wolf found refreshing, especially when it contrasted with the warm sunlight. Unfortunately, it was marred a bit by the fact that everything reeked of manure.

They were out here as the result of a planet-wide hunt for a cheap ship. Not a craft for permanent use or anything: just something that could ferry them out of orbit. It was bad enough Fox was letting them live on his ship – Wolf was _not_ going to make Fox come pick them up on top of that; fuck that idea. The only problem was that he didn’t want to spend any real money on one yet, since the whole reason they were shacking up with the Heroes of Lylat was the fact they didn’t have enough cash to shell out for good ships to begin with.

Panther and even Fay had told him he was being stupid, that Fox and his team could easily come pick them up in their Arwings. But Wolf was nothing if not stubborn – he’d be arriving onboard the Great Fox with a ship of his own, or not at all.

Which meant spending some time the last few days combing the extranet for something on-planet. He finally found something promising on WHEEL Deals the night previous: an old beatdown shuttle being sold for dirt cheap by a farming family down south. So he woke his teammates up far too early and got them all on the airbus to fly out to the middle of nowhere to buy what would inevitably be a piece of shit.

All for pride.

Panther was distinctly unhappy about this development, citing his need for beauty sleep (his words), but Fay seemed more than pleased to head out. Apparently she was born and raised in Corneria’s farm belt, albeit a section of it on the complete opposite side of the planet from where they were headed, and was looking forward to spending a bit of time in something roughly approximate to her own home.

The trio emerged from a narrow path cut between the crop fields into the farmstead proper: a smattering of prefab buildings, a processing silo, a surprisingly nice-looking house, and –

“We are not buying that”, Panther stated flatly from his side.

Fay tilted her head. “It looks alright from _this_ angle.”

The ship was more or less exactly what Wolf had anticipated it would be. It was an ugly, boxy, burgundy-colored thing what was probably older than the combined age of his team. “It’s perfect”, he said, to a withering look from Panther and a vacant smile from Fay.

A pair of hounds approached from one of the buildings, one middle-aged and holding a bottle of something probably alcoholic, and the other stooped over a cane. “Take it you’re the buyers?”, the younger one asked.

Wolf nodded. “Prospective buyers, anyway.” He cocked his head towards the ship. “How’s it run?”

The older dog shook his head and laughed; a sort of whistling noise due to the gaps in his teeth. “She runs like I do when I gets my ‘plumbing’ all gummed up, if you knows what I mean.” The younger canine (probably his son) looked mortified and tried to backtrack his dad’s increasingly bad jokes while Wolf haggled with the pair on the minutiae of pricing. Eventually, they came to settle on what Wolf felt was a very fair price for something that wasn’t even properly atmospherically-sealed outside of the cockpit.

He and the hounds shook on it when Fay spoke up. “What’s in those?”, she asked, pointing to the rows of liquid-filled amber glass bottles, same as the one the younger hound was drinking from.

He smiled as he answered. “Squiskey – old family recipe, best a man can get this side of the planet. We sell them at the market every Sunday.” He put his paw to his muzzle. “Say, you interested in a bottle?”

“No”, Wolf said as Fay eagerly nodded.

“Well that’s swell, I’ll even give you half-off, on account of the whole ‘buying our ship’ thing.”

The hound walked away to grab a bottle while Wolf turned to Fay. “Why are you buying shitty liquor from a farmer?”, he asked with much more serenity that he thought deserved the situation.

She looked aghast. “It’s not just any liquor – it’s _squiskey!_ ”, she said, as if that explained everything. “And besides, we need to bring a house-warming gift to Star Fox.”

Panther hummed in thought. “I think you mean a ‘thank-you’ gift; they’ve already owned their ship for quite some time.”

“Well, whatever. We need to bring them _something_.”

And to his surprise, Wolf found himself in agreement. “Alright, fine – whatever.” He cautiously glanced back at the hound as he approached with the bottle. “It better be damn good liquor.”

Fay nodded. “It is – I practically grew up on it back home.”

Wolf decided some questions were better left unasked.

……….

Fox collapsed on the cushioned bench with an exaggerated sigh. He knew he was getting sweat all over the seat, having just jogged a few miles in the Great Fox’s gymnasium, but it was a small price to pay for a comfortable spot to crash after exerting so much energy. For whatever reason, the seats in the combined kitchen-lounge (officially called ‘The Fox’s Den’ by the manufacturer, who apparently thought that was cute enough to write on a sign over the door, though it was quickly removed by Fox himself when they moved in) were more comfortable than any other onboard.

He relaxed there for a few moments before getting up and heading over to the fridge. He’d skipped breakfast that morning on account of not being quite ready to put up with Falco again, but now he was ravenous. He was halfway through preparing a king-sized omelet when the electronic doors opened with a hiss, permitting Krystal entrance.

Fox smiled at her from over his bowl of stirred eggs and milk. “Morning.”

“’Afternoon’, I think you mean”, she responded with a small smile of her own. “We missed you at breakfast.”

Fox kept his face neutral, continuing to stir the bowl’s contents, if a bit more forcefully now. “Wasn’t hungry.”

Krystal made a noncommittal noise in response, and Fox figured that was the most she was going to say on that topic. She poured water into a kettle from the sink and placed it on the stove before fishing a premade salad out of the fridge. “You know”, she ventured after the awkward silence, “we haven’t really talked about this whole ‘Star Wolf moving in’ situation to an appreciable degree.”

Fox frowned. “We also haven’t talked about the ‘you and me’ situation.” He knew that was petty, and also a poor attempt to change the subject, but he couldn’t help himself.

But Krystal was unphased. “Alright”, she said with a stoic but comfortable expression. “Let’s talk about both.”

He groaned as he slid the bowl’s contents into a pan. “I walked right into that one.” He couldn’t keep himself from smiling bashfully, if even a little bit, at the delicate titter of laughter that escaped her. “Who goes first?”, he asked.

“I might as well.” She sat down at the counter and unboxed the salad before taking a deep breath. “I still have feelings for you, and it’s an abstract sort of torture to be on this team.”

Fox froze for a second. The dissonance between the severity of her words and the calmness of her tone wasn’t lost on him. “You’ve been planning to say that for a while, haven’t you?” He flipped the slow-forming omelet in its pan.

She nodded. “I have a whole spiel planned out, actually.” Fox laughed and shook his head, and she smiled. “Though now that I’m sitting here, I find I don’t really want to launch into it.”

The water in the kettle began to boil, just a little bit: Fox could hear it start to fizzle. “Why don’t you give me a summary?”

“I already did. What I said was the summary.”

He stood over the stove, keeping an eye on both the cooking omelet and the boiling water, using them as an excuse to not turn and face her. “You think you’ll leave the team?”

He was met with silence in response, the only sounds in the room the sizzle of the stove’s contents. “I don’t know”, she said finally, quietly. “I know you’re not the problem here – _I_ am.”

“…Are you seriously pulling the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ card?”

She laughed again, and Fox smiled secretly, still refusing to turn around. “Yes”, she responded. “But only because it’s true.” He heard her sigh. “Star Fox has been my life, ever since we first met. But living here – being here with you, day-in, day out, it’s… and now _Wolf_ will be here too…”

The water began to properly boil, the kettle squealing in a pained hysteria before Fox quickly removed it from the stove. He finally turned to face Krystal, handing the kettle off to her so she could pour it for her tea. Her hand brushed his as she took it from him, and for a fleeting moment Fox felt everything he once had for her. But as soon as he grasped for it, it was gone.

“I’m sorry for putting you through this”, he said solemnly. But Krystal only shook her head in response.

“Don’t be. I know you see me as your closest friend – I just don’t know how much longer I can live here like that before it turns me inside-out and makes me a resentful monster.”

Fox grimaced at that. “You know that’s not going to happen, right? You’re being too dramatic about this.”

She snorted as she poured the water into the mug, tea bag already inside. “I know I am – and so are you.”

Fox shrugged. She was right; how could she _not_ be? She was a telepath: all of his emotions were an open book to her.

“Falco is sorry, you know”, she said without making eye contact, staring down at her steeping drink. “He’ll never seek you out though – you have to go to him.”

He sighed. “Is it ever anything else with him?” They shared a smile over that, though Fox’s quickly fell. “I shouldn’t have invited them to live with us before asking any of you.”

“It took you till now to realize that?”

He shook his head. “No, I always knew it, even when I gave Wolf the offer. I just didn’t care, and that’s why I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “Apology accepted – now you have to do the same for Falco and Slippy. Oh, and one other thing.”

“Yeah?”

Her smile was mischievous. “Your omelet is burning.”

……….

Falco and Slippy were locked in a card game when Fox timidly entered the bird’s personal quarters. They were both nursing drinks, though Fox guessed Slippy’s was probably non-alcoholic – the amphibian tried to avoid liquor as much as he could. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”, Fox asked cautiously.

“Of course not”, Slippy responded at once – though Falco only grunted as acknowledgement. Fox took that as the best he was going to get and pulled up a chair to their table, trying to eye a way to get himself involved in their game. Slippy must have gotten the unstated memo, because he drew a hand from the deck and passed it to him.

“Hey!”, Falco flared. “You can’t just add a third player like that”. His tone was that special sort of indignant that told Fox he was on the shitlist.

Slippy shrugged. “We don’t have any money down – what does it matter?” Falco clicked his beak dismissively and Fox tried to smother his nascent smile. He had a good hand.

Of course, if he played it he’d win this round, which might only piss the bird off further. “I fold.”

“You would”, Falco muttered loudly enough for anyone to hear.

Fox frowned at him. “You got something you want to say?”

“I don’t know”, he bit back. “ _Do I?_ ”

“Guys, _please_ ”, Slippy implored. “Do we have to have a whole ‘nother day of this?”

Falco gestured animatedly with his arms – he always did that when he was exceptionally irate. “Don’t get on _my_ tailfeathers about this – get on his!”

“I don’t have any tailfeathers.”

“Oh fuck off, Fox.”

Fox slammed his fist on the table, causing a number of the cards to jump. “Why are you so angry about this, anyway?”

Falco stared at him like he’d grown another pair of ears. “Why am I angry that you invited our biggest rivals to live with us without asking anyone first? When two of them are assholes and the third is a crazy person? Gee, Fox – I dunno. Good question!” He threw his hand down on the table and stormed off out of the room.

The vulpine sat there in silence for a few moments, staring at the table emptily. “You know”, Slippy ventured quietly. “Falco is really angry.”

Fox turned to look at him. “Really? What gave you that idea?”

Slippy did something rare, then; something unexpected. He actually _glared_ at him. Not a lot, and not too hard, but it was definitely a glare. “Don’t take it out on me just because you guys are fighting.”

“I’m not fighting though – he’s fighting _me_.”

The frog shook his head. “Fox, you didn’t even think about how any of us would feel when you invited Wolf and his crew to stay here.”

Fox cradled his head in his paw, leaning over the table. “I’m sorry, I really am. It’s true that I didn’t think about you guys first, but…”

He was having trouble forming the words, and Slippy started working to coax them out. “But?”

Fox sighed. “I didn’t think about it because I didn’t think there was anything to think _about_. It wasn’t like I was just, not caring about any of you. I didn’t think there would be a problem because why would there even be one? We have so much empty space on this damn ship, and we’ve worked with Star Wolf so many times now.”

Slippy nodded. “And you’re romantically involved Wolf.”

“Yeah”, he set his paw down and stared straight ahead. “And even if I wasn’t, I never – _ever_ – would have guessed this would be such an issue. Christ, if I’d known this would be such a sticking point –”

“You wouldn’t have offered, I know”, Slippy interrupted. The frog sighed. “Look, Fox, here’s the thing: it’s _not_ a sticking point. _Err_ … Well, it _wouldn’t_ be, not normally, but…”

Now it was Fox’s turn to coax him. “But?”

Slippy grimaced. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but… your relationship with Wolf really _is_ the heart of the problem here.”

Fox was about to speak up about how unfair that was when Slippy silenced him with a raised hand. “No, hear me out.” He looked profoundly uncomfortable. “If you’d asked Wolf to stay without asking us first, like, a few months ago, I don’t think anyone would’ve been too annoyed. I mean, _I’m_ not that annoyed, am I?”

“No. At least I hope not.”

Slippy shot him an awkward half-smile. “Don’t worry: I’m not.” His smile dropped. “But with Krystal and Falco… She still has feelings for you, you know – right?”

Fox frowned. “I do.”

“Yeah, so she’s not happy with having to watch you get all… _romantic_ … with your new, _erm_ …”

“…Boyfriend?” Fox felt his ears blush a bit as he said the word.

“I’m sorry”, Slippy supplied. “I’m still not used to… that. Anyway”, he continued, “Falco’s angry because he, you know…”

Fox groaned and put his head back in his paw. “I _don’t_ know. That’s why this is so confusing.”

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know how to put this.” Slippy leaned back in his chair, hand to his chin in thought. “Well… I’m leaving the team in a few months, right?”

Fox nodded, but internally he’d totally forgotten. He’d grown so used to the routine he’d written off Slippy’s impending marriage as some distant unknown. “Yeah?”

“And you know Krystal probably doesn’t want to do this forever too? So Falco sees himself as your partner, like the two of you are a team. Then _Wolf_ comes along, and…”

Fox felt his stomach drop. “He thinks I’m replacing him with Wolf.” He slid his paw down his face. “Oh my God, I’m such an idiot. How did I not notice?”

Slippy scratched his head in discomfort. “Because you’ve been kind of thinking about yourself and Wolf more than anyone else?” His voice trailed off as he spoke, the last few words a jumbled murmur that Fox barely made out.

Fox stared him the eyes then. “I’m truly sorry.”

Slippy nodded. “I know you are. You just… weren’t paying enough attention.”

The vulpine scooted back and got out of his seat. “I need to find Falco”, he stated more to himself than his companion. He glanced back at him as he made to leave the room. “Slippy?”

“Yeah?”

Fox smiled as much of his confident ‘leader smile’ as he could muster. “Thanks. And it won’t happen again.”

Slippy’s expression grew into a queasy smile of its own, and he gave Fox an awkward thumbs-up.

……….

Invective curses aimed at nothing were echoing around the aft hangar bay when Fox arrived, interspersed with the sounds of mechanical tinkering. As Fox approached the Arwing, he saw Falco’s bottom half sticking out from under it – he was obviously in the middle of making some busywork for himself.

Fox stood there awkwardly for a few seconds before he heard the bird speak up. “What do you want, Fox?”, he said, muffled by the mass of the starfighter above him.

 _At least he doesn’t sound as angry as earlier_ , Fox thought. “I, uh…” The vulpine rubbed the back of his head, at a loss for words. His relationship with Falco was the polar opposite of his with Krystal: whereas the latter was full of careful introspection and openly stated feelings, he and Falco just sort of winged it. They never talked through anything, mostly because it wasn’t necessary. “I guess I wanted to say sorry”, he got out at last.

The sound of Falco continuing to tighten bolts with a wrench was his response. He waited a moment before continuing. “You know… about inviting Wolf to stay with us?”

“I know what you’re sorry about, Fox”, Falco responded curtly. “I’m not an idiot.”

Fox’s ears wilted. He noticed his teammate didn’t accept his apology. Falco was temperamental as a rule, but Fox was good at differentiating between his smaller and larger rages – this one was shaping up to be one of the latter. He needed to ameliorate the situation as much as he possibly could in a fairly short period of time – he didn’t want Wolf and his team to show up and have this argument still going on. “Do you, though?”

Falco scooted out from under the ship, his face and torso covered with indigo-colored coolant. “You’re sorry for not telling me about asking Wolf to join.”

Fox realized Slippy was right: Falco really _was_ worried about being replaced. “Partially, yeah – but that’s not all of it.” The avian stared at him, unspeaking; Fox considered it a potentially hopeful sign he wasn’t being cursed out and continued. “I’m sorry for not keeping you in the loop about everything over the last few months.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry for making it look like I was ditching you for Wolf. As a teammate, I mean”, he added on awkwardly.

“I know what you mean”, Falco said calmly. The avian sighed through his nose. “Damn it, Fox – are you though? Are you really? If you’re planning on striking out with Wolf, just give it to me straight. _That’s_ what’s pissing me off here: that you’re getting all cozy with another unit and you don’t even respect me enough to tell me about it.”

Fox shook his head emphatically. “You got it all wrong, Falco. I’m not looking to join Star Wolf. You’re my wingman, and that’s not ever going to change.” He sat down on the cold plasteel floor next to Falco. “I’ve just been distracted, is all.”

Falco eyed him warily. “You’re not shitting with me?”

“Cross my heart”, Fox responded, crossing it with his paw.

Falco laughed dismissively. “Way to be a fifth grader, Fox.”

“I’d rather be a ten-year old than covered with coolant.”

“Fuck off.”

And like that, Fox knew it would be alright. Eventually. He laughed at Falco’s antics as the bird retreated back under the Arwing, and he leaned back on the floor of the hangar bay.

They’d be okay.

……….

“ _That’s_ not the Great Fox!”, Fay said at an unreasonably high volume considering the cramped quarters of the shuttle, almost directly into Wolf’s right ear. “You’re taking us to the wrong ship.”

The lupine only grumbled in response, staying the course, and Panther spoke up. “You’re probably thinking of their old ship”, he stated calmly. “The original Great Fox was destroyed in the Aparoid conflict. That’s the new one.” The feline gestured towards the somewhat rectangular craft growing in size as they approached.

Fay let out an indignant sound close to an annoyed huff. “It doesn’t look as cool as the old one.”

Wolf didn’t disagree – the old ship was one of the most aesthetically well-designed cruisers ever put out by Cornerian foundries in his opinion, but… “Fox told me the new one runs better. Bigger, more comfortable, more bells and whistles; that kind of stuff.”

“I still think it looks ugly.”

Wolf barked out a laugh. “Take it up with them, then. I’m sure they’ll be glad to have their new guests tell them their joint looks like crap right off the bat – makes a good impression.”

Fay whined. “I would never _tell_ them it looks ugly. Just say it behind their backs.”

He grumbled again, and turned on the clunky shuttle’s comms as he continued the approach. He’d gotten exactly what he paid for down on that farm: this was the worst ship he’d ever piloted in his entire life, and he’d flown a hell of a lot of ships over the years. The comm system echoed with fuzzy feedback throughout the tiny cockpit when he flipped it on. “Hey, this is Wolf. We’re here. Where should we park this thing?”

They waited a moment for someone to respond, and Slippy’s anxious voice came across the comms, the quality just as choppy as Wolf anticipated it would be. “ _Uhh_ , hold on – I’ll open the hangar bay doors. Do you see it? I mean them. …The doors, I mean.”

Wolf watched as a section of the ship’s side slid apart, revealing a spacious hangar protected from the vacuum of space by an energy field. “Yeah, I see ‘em. We’re coming in to land.” He paused for a moment before realizing he should probably start acting a bit more gracious, considering they’d all be living together for a while. “Thanks for the help, froggy boy.”

Panther shot a glare at him, earning an exaggerated shrug from Wolf in turn. He wasn’t going to stop being himself, even if he’d try to be a bit more civilized over all. Panther was just being unreasonable, he thought.

“ _Err_ , thanks?”, the amphibian responded. “I’ll tell everyone you’re here – we’ll see you in a minute.”

“Yeah”, Wolf said before cutting off the comms.

“You’re going to have to play with the other children a little less rough than that, captain”, Panther chided.

“Oh please”, Wolf shot back. “They know exactly what they’re getting into. Besides”, he turned to Fay. “We even brought a gift, right? That’s got to count for something.”

“Yes sir, cap’n!” Fay was practically jumping in her seat when she reached for the bottle of local spirit. “We’re going to be the best guests ever!”

Panther stared straight ahead at the swiftly closing-in hangar. “They’re going to want to kill us with their bare hands within a week.”

“Damn straight”, Wolf said with a lopsided grin, refusing to indicate which teammate he was responding to.

Their shuttle landed within the hangar about as smoothly could be expected – that is, it all but collapsed on the plasteel floor of the bay with an unreasonably loud clang that probably rocked the entire Great Fox a bit. Wolf cringed at the intensity of the force and sound: he’d never actually landed the craft before. He made a mental note to remember that the shuttle didn’t actually land so much as spontaneously turn off a few feet off the ground and fall straight down. He also made a mental note to pawn it off for scrap as soon as possible.

“Alright, everyone out”, he said – pointlessly, since Panther and Fay were way ahead of him, the former all too eager to get off this hellspawn of a starship and the latter with all the buoyant energy of a small child about to perform as the star of a recital. Wolf trailed after them, trying his best to look listless and disinterested at the idea of seeing Fox again. In truth, he was painfully eager, possibly even more so than Fay. There was an absolute mess of emotions broiling and churning around in his brain, and he needed the time to work through them.

But not now. Not yet.

The whole welcoming committee was already assembled by the time the trio disembarked. Fox stood in front, of course, golden-boy smile that tempted Wolf to claim it with his own fixed on his muzzle. There was Krystal, trying to look politely pleased and succeeding; Slippy, trying and failing. And Falco: he recognized contempt when he saw it, and boy did he recognize it plastered all over the bird’s face. He had to resist the urge to verbally berate the avian almost as much as the urge to make out with Fox in front of everyone.

Instead, he reached his paw forward to shake the vulpine’s hand. “Captain McCloud”, he intoned pompously, which earned an earnest laugh from Fox and some uncertain ones from Slippy and Krystal.

“Captain O’Donnell?”, Fox responded, one eyebrow cocked. “Welcome aboard the Great Fox.”

Wolf’s grin turned possessive as he shook Fox’s hand. “Glad fto be here.”

“Cut this out before I barf”, Falco spat to the shocked expressions of Krystal and Slippy – but Wolf only laughed.

“Fair enough, bird.” He signaled Panther and Fay forward, and they shook hands and made idle pleasantries with the rest of Fox’s unit. Wolf stayed focused on the vulpine though. “So, where are we shacking up?”

Fox gestured to the hallway behind him, leading out from the hangar. “This way.” He took a second glance at Wolf and his crew. “Do you guys have any luggage, or anything?”

Wolf removed the small carry bag from his belt, and pointed out similar accoutrements on his teammates. “Just this.”

That earned another scoff from Falco. “Don’t think for a second you guys’ll be mooching off our stuff.”

Wolf couldn’t help himself this time, and shot the bird a particularly dangerous, teeth-baring grin. “Wouldn’t dream of it, _roomie_.” As Falco glared at him, he turned his attention back to Fox. “We have everything we need for a few days: toothbrushes, shampoo, rations – all that crap. We’ll buy our own necessities as we go. You don’t need to worry about providing for us outside of lodging.”

Fox nodded, and Wolf turned to face the entire assembly of both their teams. “First off, I want to thank you guys for letting us stay here – I know you’re not too keen on it, so this means a lot.” Krystal and Slippy seemed relieved by the pronouncement, and Wolf was sure to glance at Panther to spot the feline’s nodded approval at his houseguest routine. “We might cut up a rough image sometimes, but Star Wolf’s no stranger to shared living spaces. We’ll do our best to stay out of your way, and get enough funds to be out of your hair as quick as possible.” He looked Fox in the eye now. “Plus, we now owe you guys one. And _that’s_ a worthwhile investment on your part.”

He ended his little impromptu speech with as disarming a smile as he could muster, pleased to see Fox’s team look sufficiently palliated. Even Falco looked less willing to shank him in his sleep.

“Oh yeah, and we brought you guys a house-warming gift!” Fay handed Fox the bottle of liquor as Panther rolled his eyes.

The vulpine accepted the unlabeled bottle. “Oh, thanks. You, uh…” He opened the cap and took a whiff of its contents, visibly recoiling. “You shouldn’t have.”

Fay put her hands on her hips. “Well, we did!”

Fox re-capped the bottle and handed it off to Krystal. “Well, if you follow us, we’ll get you guys situated.”

……….

Fox stood on the bridge side-by-side with Wolf. The last few hours had gone by in a strange haze for Fox – it was weird as all get-out for the lupine and his team to be sharing their ship. They’d kept to themselves for the most part as they settled in, but every time Fox passed one of them in the hallway he’d stumble for a split second in confusion before remembering why they were here.

“I was serious back in the hangar, you know”, Wolf said, facing straight out of the viewport. They were standing at the very front of the bridge, staring out at the vast expanse of space. The lights were dimmed, and ROB had returned to his idle position for the night. “We don’t want to impose on you guys.”

Fox shook his head. “You’re not imposing on us, trust me. We have more space than we know what to do with on this ship.”

Wolf turned to face him, his visible violet eye burning softly against the void of space behind him. Fox’s heart skipped a beat as he stared into it. “Even so – we’ll work to get out as fast as possible.” He turned back to stare at the stars, and Fox felt deprived by the lack of eye contact. “We’re going to get some starfighters first-off with the funds from our last few missions, then use them to rack up as much cash as possible to get a new home-ship. They’ll probably all be second-rate, but it is what it is.”

Fox frowned. “I know people in the Navy, you know”, he said, as if Wolf needed to be reminded of that when the lupine knew full-well that a former member of Star Fox was the top brass. “We could pull some strings; get you ships for a good price. That offer still stands.”

The lupine made a strange expression then: Fox couldn’t tell if it was a scowl or a pained grimace. “I know”, he said. “But I don’t know if I want to take you up on it. You’ve done enough for us as it is.”

He might have said ‘us’, but Fox heard an unspoken ‘me’. He gently set his paw on Wolf’s shoulder. “You’re a friend. You can never do enough for a friend.”

Wolf laughed softly, that laugh as dark and burnt and warm as black coffee over coals – that laugh that burned down Fox’s spine when he heard it. He turned back to Fox, and grasped the vulpine’s waist with a paw of his own. Fox felt heady at the contact.

“That all I am to you?”, he said, leaning towards him. “A _friend?_ ” The warm breath of the word against his ear set Fox to shivering. The vulpine closed the distance, their muzzles meeting in a kiss –

– And the doors to the bridge opened behind them with a hiss, causing Fox to break it with a yelp and Wolf to glare at the intruder with all the intensity he could muster.

Krystal stood there, expressionless. “Fox, I wanted to talk to you”, she said after a moment, voice unusually even, betraying no emotion.

The vulpine nodded slowly, now fully extricated from Wolf, who’d turned back to stare into space, arms folded and with an inscrutable expression written on his face. “…Alright. Should, _uh_ – should we talk in private, or…?”

 _Smooth, McCloud_ , he thought.

The vixen shook her head. “No. No – it’s alright. It’s just that we’ve been requested for a mission.”

Fox let out a breath of relief he didn’t know he’d been holding. He thought Krystal had come to pick up their conversation from earlier, which he didn’t relish the idea of doing. “Oh? Who’s offering the contract?”

She approached Fox, making sure not to look at the lupine standing beside him, acting as if he wasn’t even there. She handed Fox her comm device and looked back up at him.

“Lucy Hare.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As stated in the endnote for Winds of Fichina, this one's going to be a multi-chapter story again - albeit more of a slow-moving, character-centric one primarily focused on Fox and Wolf's relationship. I haven't technically finished it yet, but I have three-and-a-third of the five chapters written, so the remaining two should be done by the time they're set to go up.
> 
> Thanks for kudos and comments as always; criticism welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

# II

Krystal couldn’t sleep.

They were en route to a quasi-secret research facility somewhere in the heart of Meteo: a facility currently hosting a moderate-sized and very prestigious body of Cornerian government scientists, including Lucy Hare.

Now _that_ was a name Krystal hadn’t thought of in a long time – too long, in fact. During her short stint away from Star Fox before the Anglar Blitz, she and Lucy had become close friends. It was total happenstance that had brought them together: Krystal was taking odd solo jobs here and there, fighting off bandits, and one of them happened to be contracted by the hare in question, seeking to defend a small convoy in Fichinan space. They’d hit it off instantly, and only after the mission was complete did they learn to each other’s surprise that they were both deeply intertwined in the affairs of Star Fox. Krystal hadn’t known Lucy was Peppy’s daughter, and Lucy had never put two and two together and realized that Krystal was Fox’s erstwhile girlfriend. They’d laughed about that over a drink, among many other things.

But time passed, and they drifted apart. Not due to any falling out or anything like that: just the constant forward pressure of life. They were both very busy individuals, and over time they just sort of forgot about each other. It was one of those short, lived-out friendships that Krystal carried in her memory.

Or so she thought.

Lucy had called her, and Krystal instantly realized the anxious tone in the rabbit’s voice. It was shocking enough to hear from her after such a long period of silence, but to hear her typically even-keel voice so uncertain was equally as surprising, if not more so. She’d been reticent to provide many details over the comm: something was wrong at her research station, the higher-ups were in denial, and she needed someone she could trust to investigate. Who better to ask than her old friend, who happened to be a member of the most prestigious mercenary unit in the system?

So of course Krystal said yes, she’d help. She proceeded to head right to Fox’s quarters to let him know, only to find him missing. She tracked him to the bridge after expanding her consciousness a bit to ‘feel’ for his psyche and entered without a second thought – only to walk in on him and Wolf.

She was being unreasonable – she knew she was. It wasn’t her place in the slightest to feel upset by Fox’s budding relationship with the lupine, to feel indignant about it.

But that didn’t stop the pain. She hadn’t been lying to Fox earlier in the day, when they talked. Seeing him in the arms of someone else still triggered a vitriolic response, no matter what she did to train herself out of thinking that way. Fox wasn’t just an ex – he wasn’t even just her closest friend. Fox had been the man who’d introduced her to the broader scope of the Lylat system. Cerinea had been such an insular planet, so separate and closed-off from the world at large. When it was destroyed, she washed adrift in the endless sea of a galaxy she knew nothing about. Fox was the one who caught her and brought her ashore.

She was deeply loyal to him, and he was without a doubt the person she loved the most. Watching him grow so close, and intimate, and vulnerable with another person – more than he’d ever been with her, in fact, despite their having been together for years and his new relationship barely out of the cradle – felt like a stark rebuff from the whims of fate itself.

She realized she wouldn’t be getting any sleep this night, and upon seeing they weren’t set to reach Meteo for another few hours she decided she might as well go make herself a pot of tea. She was nothing if not a creature of habit, and chamomile was her security blanket. This wouldn’t be the first time she found herself up in the odd hours of the night, swathing herself in a warm drink, alone in the kitchen.

So it was a surprise to enter and find she _wasn’t_ alone.

Wolf was leaning over the counter, wearing nothing but a tank top and sweatpants, his defined musculature on full display. He looked groggy, staring straight ahead at the contents of the microwave slowly turn in place like the victim of hypnotism might stare at metronome. He turned to face her as she entered the kitchen, and his exhausted thousand-yard stare morphed into a crooked grin.

“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?”, he asked.

She shook her head, equally as much to dispel her own surprise at bumping into him as to answer his question. “I have a lot on my mind”, she said calmly.

He snorted. “ _Tell me about it_ ”, he muttered, before folding his arms on the counter and dipping his head into them.

She did her best to ignore his presence as she went about preparing her tea. It was exceedingly difficult though, as it always was for her. _The curse of an empath_ , she thought as she tried to ignore the steady waves of anxiety, fear and pain breaking against the bulwark of her mind like a tide crashing against the rocks. Wolf was practically radiating a complex cocktail of a therapist’s worst nightmare, and it was a challenge to not accidentally mainline it just from being in his vicinity.

“So what’s got you up?”, he broke the silence with a curious stare. She couldn’t detect any falsity in his question: he was genuinely interested in her presence.

She shrugged, not particularly interested in sharing her baggage with someone she (unfairly) saw as her ‘competition’. “I have trouble sleeping sometimes. It just happens.” It was a partial truth.

Wolf must have realized she was holding back, unsurprising given his role as the leader of a merc unit. The captain had to be clued in to recognizing unspoken social cues when he saw them. He didn’t press though, for which she was grateful. “I think it’s part of the gig”, he said. “You work so many weird hours, they take their toll after a while.”

She hummed in thought, fully aware he was spouting bullshit, and further aware that _he_ was aware she knew he was spouting bullshit. Wolf knew she was an empath – he knew he couldn’t keep any secrets from her. No one could, which is why so many people avoided her, as they had avoided all Cerineans. Her people were isolationist by nature for a reason.

He drummed his fingers on the counter. “Think you’ll need our help on this… whatever it is you guys are heading into?”

“I don’t know”, she answered truthfully. “Lucy wouldn’t tell me anything over the comm. If we do, we’ll let you know.”

He nodded, and his ears perked up as the microwave beeped. He retrieved a soggy mass of something from the appliance that smelled… well, she didn’t think it smelled unappetizing so much as it smelled like nothing at all. He saw her nose wrinkling and grinned. “It’s a ration pack. It’s got all the nutrients I need for the day in one convenient brick.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I wasn’t aware they were supposed to be microwaved.”

The lupine chuckled. “They’re not. I mean, heating them up doesn’t ruin their contents or anything, but you don’t have to. I just do because it makes ‘em easier to chew.” He punctuated the statement by grabbing a forkful of the pasty substance and shoveling it into his mouth and chewing it a bit before swallowing. “See? Can’t beat that classic taste of fake vegetables and dried egg powder.”

She laughed despite herself, before frowning. “You know, we have actual food you can eat if you’d prefer.”

His jovial grin subsided somewhat. “Nah. I was being straight with you guys on the bridge: Star Wolf will provide for everything we need outside of shelter.” He jammed his fork back into the pasty brick and held the scoop aloft, staring at it for a second. “We don’t want to be charity cases”, he said quietly before taking the bite.

Krystal heard what he truly meant loud and clear though – _Wolf_ didn’t want to be a charity case, personally. He’d lived a challenging life and rose through the ranks on his own talent, hard work and instincts, and furthermore was obviously scared by the idea of people caring for him. She didn’t want to come to this realization, didn’t _want_ to understand him better, preferring to see him as the man who took her Fox away – but she couldn’t help it. Not with how she was. Not with _who_ she was. Peoples’ emotions were an open book to her, one she was forced to read – and Wolf’s story was one riddled with suffering, self-doubt, and self-loathing.

And all of a sudden, she pitied him. Perhaps even more so, she pitied Fox: the vulpine had a hard road ahead of him with this relationship. _Oh, Fox_ , she thought. _What are you getting yourself into?_

She did something she didn’t expect she would then, and retrieved two mugs from the cabinet when the water was done boiling. Wolf stared at her blankly as she did so, but she felt what was hiding beneath the surface. A gut reaction of anger at her kindness, aimed at himself for being so weak as to need pity and so disgusting as to not deserve it, undercut with genuine thankfulness at her act of charity, the two conflicting emotions existing side-by-side with each other in an act of harmonious dissonance.

They didn’t speak, because they didn’t need to. When their tea was done steeping, they raised their mugs to each other before drinking. Neither of them knew what they were toasting to, but that was alright.

Sometimes you just need to toast for the hell of it.

……….

Fox let the jets of hot water flowing from the showerhead wash over him, vainly hoping that they might wash some of his confusion away along with the oil in his fur.

After Krystal had walked in on him and Wolf and clued him in on the (honestly not very enlightening) mission details, he’d retreated back to his quarters with the lupine right on his tail. He was very much a fox in that way, he thought, seeking refuge in his den. Wolf had followed him inside, and had wasted no time in trying to get intimate with him – but Fox resisted, and the lupine gave up, rebuffed.

He’d tried to explain to Wolf what was going through his mind: how Krystal’s pain was hanging over him like a pall, how Falco’s distrust filled him with indignant anger, and how it would probably be best if they didn’t spend the night together – at least for the first night of Star Wolf’s stay. How it would only serve to reinforce the reason Fox’s team thought he’d _really_ offered Wolf the choice to live with them, even if they were mostly too polite to say it out loud.

Wolf assured him it was alright, and that he understood, but Fox detected something belying that: something more serious than just a case of blue balls. Wolf tried to look fine with it, putting on that cocky grin of his that almost melted Fox’s resolve, but Fox could feel the pain hiding behind it before the lupine left.

He groaned as he shut the shower off and reached for a towel. He knew _something_ was eating at Wolf, but he didn’t know what. And to make it worse, he wasn’t sure how to ask what it was. Odds are Wolf would probably deflect his questions. The only person he knew who could possibly help him figure this out was Krystal, and that option was decidedly off the table. He knew the two of them would be fine in the long run, but it was rough at the moment – not the best time to go pestering her to help him puzzle out his enigmatic boyfriend when she was still reeling from the fact he even _had_ a boyfriend in the first place. He couldn’t even go to Falco for one of their semi-regular marksman contests or martial arts bouts to relieve stress since the avian was still being kind of pissy about the whole thing himself.

That was how he found himself outside Slippy’s quarters, holding his paw just in front of the door and hesitating to knock. He felt bad saddling the frog with his own problems, but he needed _someone_ to talk to. He took a deep breath – but just as he was about to knock, he was interrupted by a deep voice from behind him.

“There’s no point – Froggy boy is in the kitchen right now.” Fox turned in surprise to see Panther standing there. The black feline cocked his head to indicate the hall behind him. “I just saw him there a moment ago.”

Fox stared at him for a moment, knowing he looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “His name’s Slippy, not ‘Froggy boy’.”

Panther chuckled and folded his arms, and Fox’s initial shock and discomfort subsided. It was going to take him a while to get used to bumping into Wolf’s teammates. “I apologize. Blame Wolf: he refers to your teammates like that all the time. I suppose I picked up the habit by accident.”

Fox nodded slowly. “It’s fine”, he said before thinking a bit. “Does he have a name for me?”

Panther barked out a laugh at that, catching Fox by surprise again. He’d never seen the feline laugh loudly before. Come to think of it, he barely knew anything about him in the first place. “I think that’s a question you’d likely prefer to go unanswered”, he said with more than a hint of mischief in his eyes.

Fox awkwardly shifted from one foot to the other. “So… you know Wolf pretty well, right?”

The feline hummed in thought, pulling on his whiskers as he did so. “That’s a difficult question to answer, if I’m being honest. We’ve been in more life-or-death situations than I can count on two paws, but Wolf is a… _complicated_ individual to understand.”

Fox sighed, feeling defeated. “Well, thanks, anyway.”

“Now hold on”, Panther continued, stopping Fox from walking away from the conversation. “I didn’t say I _don’t_ know him well. In fact, I’m possibly the person who knows him the best. It’s just that ‘well’ is a very relative term, and Wolf is a private person. He keeps his cards very close to his chest, if you understand me.”

The vulpine chuckled. “I understand you all too well.”

“Quite”, Panther said with a smile. “I take it you have something you wanted to ask about him?”

Fox rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to pressure you to talk about him or anything like that – I know that must be awkward, his being your captain and all.”

The feline shrugged, a remarkably fluid motion. “Not at all. Ask away.”

“Alright”, Fox said with a nod. “Do you know if there’s anything… _bothering_ him?”

Panther hummed thoughtfully again. “You might have to be more specific than that. I imagine there’s a great deal of things that eat away at the captain’s mental composure.”

Fox thought on it for a bit, trying to figure out his words. “I guess I mean something about me and him – _together_ – that’s bothering him.”

The feline went silent, trying to form words of his own. “I can only surmise”, he said after a moment. Fox nodded, urging him to continue. Panther stroked his whiskers again. “I believe Wolf considers himself to be a negative influence on those around him.” He eyed Fox calculatingly. “I further believe he sees you to be the ultimate paragon of heroism and goodness.”

Fox couldn’t help it – he laughed out loud at that. “Oh, come on. _Really?_ ”

But Panther looked dead serious. “I cannot say any of this as fact – only what I think to be fact. And I believe _he_ believes he’s going to somehow… _how do I put this_ … ‘taint’ your goodness; corrupt you via his bad influence.”

Fox glared at Panther. “That’s ridiculous. He would never think something like that.” Even as the words left Fox’s mouth, he knew they might be wrong. Could Wolf really believe such a thing?

Panther only shrugged at him again. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I’ve explained to you what I surmise to be the case – it’s up to you what to do with this information.” He walked past Fox then, heading further down the hallway and leaving the vulpine standing there. He turned back once more to look him in the eye. “For what it’s worth, I also believe you’ll make the correct decision when it comes down to it.”

Fox’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “What do you mean by that?”

But Panther was now willfully ignoring him, travelling down the hallway to wherever it was he was headed.

Fox scoffed. “ _Cats_ ”, he muttered, “ _always so theatrical_.”

He shook his head and started towards the bridge – they’d be arriving at their destination soon.

……….

The rest of his team was already assembled when he arrived on the bridge, Slippy standing over one of the consoles with ROB, Krystal seated in one of the chairs, and Falco standing in the corner trying to look aloof. They looked at him as he entered, Krystal and Slippy nodding at him; but he didn’t receive any kind of ceremonial attention, unlike some other captains he was familiar with (especially in the Cornerian Navy). Fox hated that kind of stuff as a rule.

“What’s our situation?”, he asked as he sat himself in the captain’s chair at the center of the room.

“We’re almost there – the station should be showing up any minute now”, Slippy responded. They’d been inside the Meteo asteroid field for a few hours already. It was always inconvenient to travel through Meteo – you couldn’t just open a warp gate right outside your designated coordinates without risking crashing into an asteroid, so the only viable way to get anywhere inside the field was to warp outside of it and then head to your destination the old-fashioned way: flying there.

It made the entire zone obnoxiously difficult to traverse – which in turn made it the prime location for all sorts of people who wanted to be either left alone or stay hidden. They might refer to it as ‘Meteo’ in the same way they’d refer to a planet, but in truth it was a massive region of space filled with everything from asteroid mines to bandit colonies to research stations both private and public.

It was that last one that brought them out here today. “Have we heard anything more from Lucy or the station since she commed you?”, he directed at Krystal.

The vixen shook her head. “No, and I don’t anticipate we will.” She paused and looked out the large window at the head of the bridge, the very same one Fox and Wolf had been staring out last night. “In fact… I’m not sure anyone even knows we’re coming besides her.”

Falco frowned. “What do you mean?”

“When she contacted me, she made specific mention of the fact her supervisor refused to believe anything was actually wrong. Granted, that’s only one individual – there could easily be others in positions of authority who disagree.” But Fox noticed she didn’t look too sure of that herself as she said it.

Slippy turned from his seat at the console to face her. “Is it possible if…”, he trailed off and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude.”

Krystal shook her head. “No, go ahead.”

“Well”, he continued, “what if she’s wrong? Lucy, I mean. Maybe her supervisor is right and there really _isn’t_ anything going on.”

The vixen continued to tap a finger against her muzzle. “It’s possible. That doesn’t sound like Lucy, but… it _has_ been a while since we last talked.”

Fox took in the conversation from his position in the captain’s chair before standing up and approaching Krystal and Slippy at the console. “Alright – let’s keep an open mind, all of us. I don’t know Lucy as well as you do, Krystal, and I trust your judge of character.” Krystal nodded at him. “ _But_ , we shouldn’t go into this with any preconceptions.” He looked to each of his teammates in turn. “On the chance she hasn’t informed her superiors we’re coming, we don’t want to get her into trouble. Does anyone have any ideas for a plausible cover story explaining our presence?”

Falco cocked his head. “Lucy’s old friends with Krystal, right? So just say we were in the area and decided to pop in to catch up.”

“Will they buy that, though?” Slippy looked unsure. “I mean, this research facility is really off the beaten path, even by Meteo standards. We had to go like, six hours out of our way to get here. That seems like a lot of work for just popping in.”

Krystal reclined in her seat. “Not to mention her supervisors must know she thinks something is wrong – our arrival will be suspicious no matter what we do.”

Fox folded his arms. “Alright – let’s say we were already coming out here for unrelated business and decided to pay her a surprise visit. There were bandits camping out nearby, or something. That gives us a reason for being here.” He scanned across the three of them again. “That sound good?”

“Aye-aye, captain”, Slippy (kind of) mock-saluted. Krystal nodded and Falco shrugged, which Fox took for assent.

“Alright”, the vulpine said as he settled himself back in his seat. “We should be within local comms range now – let’s give them a heads-up.”

“You got it”. Slippy activated the system, sending out a friendly callsign in the general direction of the station, still no more than a metallic blip in the distance. A few moments passed before he spoke up. “They’ve acknowledged us.”

“Patch them through”, Fox ordered.

Static rang out over the bridge before slowly evening out into a more legible sound: a male voice. “This is Meteo Research Station 09. Designation?”

“Great Fox”, Fox responded. “We’re coming in for a visit. Docking coordinates?”

The voice paused for a beat. “Great Fox? As in _Star Fox?_ ”

Fox couldn’t help but smile a little at the other person’s shocked and somewhat awestruck response. “Yeah. I’m patching our designation through now.” He adopted a conciliatory tone. “Sorry to show up without any notice; hope it isn’t a problem.”

“No! No, not at all. It’s just… a surprise. Here: coordinates sent.”

“Thanks”, Fox ended the exchange. He looked over to the rest of his team. “Well that went well. Maybe there really _isn’t_ anything going on.”

“One can hope”, Krystal said quietly.

……….

The station outside his window was a far cry from the ones he used to attack back in the old days: all glistening, titanite-infused plasteel, practically glowing against the velvety black backdrop of space.

Cornerian research stations had become something of an inside joke amongst his compatriots during the war: Andross had never come across one he _didn’t_ want to strike with a full-scale assault, even if the station wasn’t researching anything relevant to the war effort. Hell, even if it wasn’t on a planet that made any strategic sense to invade and occupy. Looking back on it, that was probably one of the earliest quirks the ape developed that started to clue Wolf in to his deteriorating mental state. Andross had always been a real son of a bitch, but his actions during the first half of the war always made sense. Venom had managed to push Corneria almost all the way to the brink, and at one point it even looked like they were guaranteed victory.

Conventional wisdom said everything changed when Star Fox turned the tide and repelled the invasion of Corneria, capitalizing on that successful defense and turning it into a campaign to retake the system piece-by-piece. While that was inarguably true, Wolf knew it wasn’t the whole truth. It made sense on the surface: Corneria had been losing the war with Venom pretty hardcore until Fox came along. But what conventional wisdom _didn’t_ mention was that Andross had been slowly losing his mind in the run-up to that disastrous invasion of the capital. He hadn’t even sent Star Wolf to fight in that battle, instead ordering them to bomb climate facilities on Fichina. It was utterly asinine, and only one of a hundred crazy little things the would-be tyrant did to seal his own fate in the coming year. Sure, Fox and his team’s efforts weren’t to be understated… but deep down, Wolf knew they would have lost if they’d been squared up against Andross in his prime.

That thought still kept him up at night sometimes. What if Andross hadn’t fallen to pieces at the end? What if he’d done the logical thing and coalesced all his forces on Corneria? What if Wolf had been squared off against Fox in that very first battle the vulpine took part in? Star Wolf had been agitated, demoralized and ill-rested when the two teams squared off on Fichina – but what if they’d been at the top of their game, fighting an unbloodied and inexperienced Star Fox?

Wolf didn’t know who would have won that battle. He _couldn’t_ know. He knew it was pointless to torture himself with these horrible hypotheticals, but they pervaded the private spaces in the back of his mind nonetheless. There were a thousand uncontrollable twists of fate that led the pair of canines to where they were today – where they were with each other.

His line of thought was interrupted when Fay knocked on his door. He knew it was her simply by how frenzied and hyper the pattern of knocks was. Panther favored a subtle double-knock, but Fay preferred to just whale on the damn thing until she got his attention. He pressed the button to slide the door aside, and she entered without a moment’s hesitation. “We’ve arrived, cap’n!”

He kept his voice neutral as he unintentionally glanced back at the station taking up virtually all the visible space outside the large window. “Yeah. I noticed.”

Fay was practically bouncing in her boots. “Star Fox invited us inside along with them!”

Now _that_ caught Wolf off-guard. He’d been under the impression Fox and his team would handle this one themselves, whatever ‘this one’ ended up being (probably nothing, if Wolf was being honest with himself) while Star Wolf held down the fort. “He told you this?”

She shook her head. “Nope!” She emphasized the sound of the word, popping her lips on the last consonant.

Wolf’s eyes narrowed. “But you just said he invited us.”

She laughed. “No, silly. _Krystal_ invited us on his behalf. She said, and I quote, ‘it’d be good to get an outside opinion’, and told us to tag along if we wanted.”

“ _Krystal?_ ” That surprised Wolf equally as much as the fact that they were being invited along in the first place. He had nothing against the vixen personally, but he assumed they’d be butting heads more often than not considering the whole ‘ex’ situation. Their unexpected meeting in the kitchen last night hadn’t been _totally_ painful though. Maybe he’d misread her feelings on the matter. “Alright”, he said. “Let’s get geared up then.”

Fay’s paw shot to her forehead in an earnest solute. “You got it, cap’n!”

“At ease”, he said with a laugh before starting to get ready himself.

Maybe this day wouldn’t be so boring, after all.

……….

Lucy was already there when they disembarked, a warm smile on her face that reminded Fox a great deal of her father. He always found it a little strange how comparatively little the two of them knew each other considering their families’ history. That wasn’t to say he _didn’t_ know Lucy – they’d known each other in some capacity ever since they were both small children, their fathers being best friends and teammates. But you’d think for all that they’d be a lot closer; as it was, they were more acquaintances than anything else. Perhaps it was inevitable, considering the wildly divergent paths their lives took in adolescence: Fox going to the flight academy, and Lucy preparing for a future career in one of Corneria’s robust research programs.

But Fox guessed it was probably more complicated than that, and also largely on his shoulders rather than hers. They’d been as close as any two kids could be as pups… but then James died, the war began, and that was that. Fox ensconced himself totally in the world of aerial combat, and they drifted apart.

There wasn’t any trace of judgment or awkwardness on her face when she ignored his extended paw in favor of giving him a hug though. “It’s been too long, Fox”, she said, a genuine smile fixed on her face. 

Fox grinned sheepishly. “Yeah – yeah, it has.”

She turned away from him and gave Krystal a similar hug. “You too, you minx!” Krystal laughed at that, a much more undignified and free-sounding reaction than Fox was used to hearing from her.

“Since when have I been a minx?”, Krystal asked her.

Lucy shook her head in mock disbelief. “This girl”, she declared as she looked at the rest of the assembled Star Fox team, “tried to seduce a gang leader to distract him the last time we worked together on a mission.” Falco barked out a laugh at that, and Fox and Slippy couldn’t help it and ended up joining in. Krystal batted at Lucy indignantly as the rabbit knocked her paw away, laughing all the while.

“You can’t just reveal things like that!”, Krystal berated her with a smile plastered on her face.

“The hell I can’t!”, Lucy shot back before turning to greet Slippy and Falco.

Fox turned to face the docking-bay connecting the Great Fox to the station as he heard the hydraulic doors open with a gust of condensed air, permitting Wolf and his team entrance. The lupine took in the collected quintet, all with smiles on their faces, and attempted to force a grin of his own. Unfortunately, it came out somewhat threatening. “Are we interrupting?”

Lucy’s ears perked up at the new arrivals, apparently taken aback. “Aren’t you Star Wolf?”, she asked, and for the life of him Fox couldn’t tell if her tone was questioning, intrigued or offended.

“The one and only”, Wolf responded as he gestured to his teammates and himself before setting his paws on his hips. Panther nodded politely at her while Fay shot forward like a bolt and started shaking her paw with both of her own.

“Nice to meet you!”, the canine said, and Lucy laughed again.

“Well _you_ certainly don’t fit the Star Wolf ‘style’”, she said as she shook Fay’s paw.

Fay let go and shook her head. “Of course I do”, she said seriously. “I _am_ the Star Wolf style!”

Lucy let out a belly laugh at that pronouncement, and Fox noticed Wolf struggling (and failing) to keep his grin stable as it morphed into something closer to a grimace. “So what brings you three around here, then?” The question was directed at Wolf, but she looked at Fox while she asked. “I asked for a fox and I got a wolf in the bargain too. How’d that happen?”

Fox was about to speak up, but Krystal beat him to the punch. “We’re consulting with Star Wolf for a little while – they’re helping us on our missions, and vice versa.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, and Lucy must have intuited that on some level, but she didn’t pry. “Well, whatever your reason, I’m glad you came. All of you.” Her expression faded somewhat, turning into a sad smile that looked so much like Peppy it rattled Fox a bit. “We’re having a bit of a… situation, on the station.”

“Care to elaborate?”, Fox asked.

She nodded. “Sure – but not here.” She half-turned to face the door leading out of the bay. “I’ll take you to meet Dr. Ostheim; he’s the head honcho around here.” Her face fell to the floor.

“We have a lot to talk about.”

……….

Meteo Research Station 09 was equally as glistening on the inside as out. More than a few times Fox found himself marveling at some of the touches: automatic doors that slid so fast it was like they opened in a blink of the eye, smooth elevators that ran on G-diffusion rather than mechanical pistons and pulleys, instant access to the station’s onboard quasi-AI from anywhere onboard simply by asking for it out loud (that last one threw him for a loop the first few times he saw it, seeing people hold conversations with a digitized disembodied voice as they walked down the hall, before Lucy explained it).

None of it was too wild in and of itself – hell, the Great Fox employed many of these features, along with most Cornerian military cruisers. But it was such a drastic upgrade from the old, broken-down research stations Fox was used to that it kept startling him.

“What are you guys studying here, anyway?”, he asked at last as they walked down the halls, headed for the lead doctor’s office. It had to be something important for Corneria to allocate so many resources just to making the living space this comfortable, he thought.

“Gravity”, Lucy responded without missing a beat. “Or more specifically, how gravity works.”

Falco looked confused. “What do you mean ‘how gravity works?’ You drop shit and it falls.”

Lucy sniggered. “Well, _yes_ , but there’s a bit more to it than that.” She gestured to some of the labs as they passed, the reinforced glass walls allowing them to see inside. “So much of our technology relies on G-diffusion to operate, and yet we still don’t know why. The initial creation of gravity-altering exotic matter was itself an accident, and no one’s been able to properly explain the mechanics behind it – _yet_. We’re looking to change that.”

Slippy nodded along, but Fox was as lost as he always was with this sort of stuff. It was funny: he wasn’t dumb (at least he hoped he wasn’t), but anything and everything to do with advanced physics was such a turn-off he found himself tuning out and politely nodding along whenever the topic arose.

“You don’t understand a word I’m talking about, do you?” Lucy directed the question at him, eyes lidded and one brow raised in challenge. Fox pointedly didn’t answer, and she shook her head with a smile. “Fox was never one for this sort of stuff growing up.”

“You knew each other as kids?” Wolf’s tone sounded genuinely surprised, and Fox read a hint of anxiety in it. Fox was putting the pieces together over time, beginning to suspect the lupine was jealous of anyone and everyone who knew Fox in some capacity. He found it simultaneously grating and flattering.

“Hard not to – our dads were bosom buddies.” Lucy’s smile took on a wistful, nostalgic air, and again Fox saw so much of Peppy in her expression that it tripped him up. Had she always taken after her father like this, and he’d been too oblivious to notice?

“Your father is General Peppy, correct?” Panther was polite as always.

She nodded. “Yep.” She said it with less enthusiasm than Fox would’ve guessed. “He’s the biggest fish in the pond now. We’re here, by the way.” She abruptly came to a stop outside of a nondescript door about halfway down the hall and activated the softly glowing touchpad to its right. The door shot open just as swiftly as the others, opening out into a sparse but spacious and aesthetically well-designed office space with an old tortoise seated at a desk in the center.

He looked up from the tablet in his hand and squinted before putting on a pair of overlarge glasses that made his eyes look a little too big. “Ah!”, he exclaimed. “Ms. Hare, and… you’ve brought guests?”

“Dr. Ostheim”, Lucy said as he moved to the side and ushered them all in. The room was large, but Fox still felt claustrophobic as they all grouped together and more or less accidentally hemmed in the old turtle. “This is Fox McCloud, Slippy Toad, Falco Lombardi and Krystal of Star Fox – along with Wolf O’Donnell, Panther Caroso and Fay… I’m sorry, I don’t actually know your last name –”

“That’s okay”, Fay said, seemingly with no indication to answer.

“…Right. And Fay, of Star Wolf.” The tortoise looked flabbergasted by the large number of people suddenly in his personal space, and Lucy took a deep breath and continued. “I asked them to investigate the breakdowns.”

Ostheim’s eyes widened at first (a somewhat distressing effect considering how large his eyes already looked given the glasses), and then slowly fell to his desk. “I see”, he said, sounding more than a little disappointed to Fox. “You’ve decided to take matters into your own hands, then?”

“I have.” There was no hint of apology in Lucy’s expression, and at the turtle’s beleaguered sigh Fox felt like they might have walked into a situation a little more precarious than he initially believed.

“I suppose this was inevitable”, the doctor said, leaning back in his chair. “You’ve always been a very driven researcher.” He paused for a beat, his expression fluctuating before finally resting on something caught halfway between an exhausted smile and dispirited frown. “It’s an admirable quality.”

Lucy’s brave front cracked a little, and Ostheim looked at Fox. “Welcome aboard Station 09. I suppose it’s pointless for me to say we’re all fine and dandy here.” Fox nodded, and he continued. “There have been a number of… _incidents_ , over the last few weeks. I’m of the mind they’re brought on by stress – Ms. Hare disagrees.” He removed his glasses, apparently done with the conversation. “She can bring you up to speed.”

“Alright”, Fox said with conviction he didn’t actually have. _What are we doing here?_ , he asked himself.

Lucy looked at the doctor one more time, who was still refusing to look up at her, before turning back to the assembled group of mercenaries. “I’ll take you to the medbay. It’s where we have them… resting.” She said the last word like it was something distasteful, and finessed her way through the group to head back to the hallway, intent on leading them.

Fox saw Krystal attempting to make eye contact with him from his side, and he responded to it. Her expression was worried, and he instantly knew she’d picked up on something he hadn’t; something hidden. She clearly didn’t want to speak up about it yet though, so Fox nodded to signal his understanding, and she nodded back.

Wolf must have seen their exchange, because he was fixing Fox with a look of his own – one that spoke of cutting analysis. Fox smiled at him to try and assuage whatever it was the lupine was feeling, but Wolf turned away without reciprocating. Fox knew they really needed to have a talk about what Panther told him, and about his jealousy in general – but now wasn’t the time.

They followed Lucy into the hallway, jostling each other as they exited through the door, and Fox tried to refocus on the task at hand to mixed success.

He felt something as they began to head down the hall: something that made him freeze in place. Slippy saw him and stopped, triggering the rest of the group to do the same. “Fox… are you alright?”, he asked.

“I…” Fox didn’t know how to answer. For the slightest, most fleeting shadow of a second, he’d felt _something_ inside his mind. Something that wasn’t him: a thought, a concept, an emotion – _something_ – that was utterly foreign to himself, that walked right into his own psyche and darted out just as fast. It all happened so quickly he thought he might have imagined it.

“It’s nothing”, he responded at last, realizing they were all staring at him worriedly. And it really _was_ nothing: he convinced himself of that. Just a thought, or a thought about a thought. He put a smile on his face to reassure them. “I just felt a draft, is all.” He internally cringed at what a lame excuse that was.

He was responded with looks of mild confusion and worry, but Lucy shrugged and led them on. Only two people fixed him with appraising stares for a second longer: Krystal, and Wolf. Neither of them bought it – or at least, neither of them were _willing_ to buy it.

Fox ignored their gazes, and jogged a bit to catch up with Lucy.

But he didn’t manage to miss Wolf and Krystal turn to make eye contact with each other as he left them behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I forgot to mention last chapter that this story updates on Thursdays, so that comment about future chapters being "done by the time they're meant to go up" didn't make any sense. Whoops.
> 
> Thanks for the kudos and comments, criticism welcome as always.


	3. Chapter 3

# III

Wolf guessed their large group made an unusual sight travelling down the hall to the medbay based off the stares he received from the researchers passing by. Or maybe they were really only staring at _him_ , wondering why such a rough-looking individual was waltzing through their pristine research station without a care. That wasn’t entirely true though: he looked like he was in his element, wearing an easy grin belied by just a hint of devil-may-care attitude, but the truth was that he felt uncomfortable in this space. Like he was a bull in a china shop, and he was going to accidentally break everything by looking at it funny.

Speaking of funny looks: he was receiving one right now from Krystal and doing his best to summarily ignore it – though he knew that was pointless, since she could basically read minds. They’d both keyed-in to Fox’s weird little episode back there, and obviously neither of them bought that crap about a draft (as if there could even be a draft on an airtight space station for fuck’s sake). Wolf didn’t really care too much though. If it was important, Fox would tell him – if not, then not. Simple, right?

Only he was afraid that might not be the case. _Would_ Fox confide something important to him? Or would he rather tell Krystal about it? Or Falco, or Slippy, or even Lucy now. That was all Wolf needed: _another_ one, as if he wasn’t already competing with enough people. Everyone loved Fox. How could you not?

Krystal was still trying to get him to look at her, and he finally reneged with an exaggerated shrug and a mouthed ‘ _what?_ ’. She looked annoyed at that, and turned her face away with a silent _huff_ and a shake of her head. That was totally unfair though: what did she even want him to do? He wasn’t the psychic here.

Lucy stopped in front of a wide plasteel door that looked just like all the others and the rest of the group came to a stop behind her. She opened the door with an access card and stood aside, ushering them in. Wolf hated the room immediately. He _always_ hated hospitals. Too cold, too sterile, full of needles and tubes and God only knows what other torture devices the docs could come up with. A hefty grizzly manned the desk in the center of the room, and several halls branched off in different directions.

“Good morning, Boris”, Lucy said politely with a slight bow. Wolf rolled his eyes at her overly courteous act: for someone as versed in masks as him, the ploy was painfully obvious.

The bear only nodded at her. “ _Da_ ”, he said with a thick Katinan accent. “Is good.”

Lucy stepped aside and brought Fox forward. “This is Fox McCloud of Star Fox, and his team.” Fox awkwardly waved at the bear who had a solid two feet on him sitting down. “They’re here to… _check_ on the patients.”

The grizzly stared at her for a little while before finally nodding. They both must have understood who ‘the patients’ were, which made Wolf wonder how much of what was going on here was really a secret. Boris stood up, revealing his full height, and Wolf was glad they weren’t meeting as opponents because _Jesus_. The bear walked down one of the halls alongside Lucy, the two of them whispering to each other so quietly Wolf couldn’t catch what they were saying, and the rest of them followed. They stopped in front of another door, this one apparently deactivated based on the keypad being turned off. It was a fake-out though, because Boris did something that turned the keypad back on and stepped aside.

Lucy walked in first, and signaled for the rest of them to follow. Wolf was the last in, and the door slid closed behind him – he wondered if Boris was still standing there as an impromptu guard, or if he’d gone back to his desk.

The new room was dark; _way_ darker than anywhere else on the station Wolf had seen so far. It was split in half, with a reinforced glass window cutting it down the middle. On their side of the glass, there was a fully-furnished monitoring station with a nurse on duty: a timid-looking mouse who quietly nodded at them before turning back to her console. But on the _other_ side…

Wolf frowned. There were four animals strapped down to hospital beds. Two looked like they were sleeping (a moose and a cat); the third a robin staring at the ceiling and repeating something over and over, though Wolf couldn’t tell what since the glass divider was noise-cancelling. The last one was a dog of some sort, and he was thrashing in his bed, throwing his whole body into it, and looking like someone suffering an epileptic seizure for all Wolf could tell.

“Lucy…” Fox spoke up at last, after they’d silently watched the quartet of obviously mentally ill animals for a minute. “What _is_ this?”

The hare sighed. “ _This_ is why I asked for your help”, she responded solemnly. “It all started a month ago: Jeremy – he’s the moose at the end – he had sort of a… a _fit_ , I guess, in the lab. There wasn’t anything about predilection to seizures on his medical record, but we treated him as such anyway. The medbay here provides a level of treatment equal to the best anyone can get on Corneria, so it made sense to keep him here.” She frowned and shook her head. “But he never recovered. He’d wake up, seize, and go back to sleep again.”

She lightly pressed her paw to the glass. “And it wasn’t just the seizing. He’d… _say_ things. During the fits. Talking to himself, over and over again.” She let the paw fall and turned back to face them. “A week later, the same thing happened to a second researcher. A week later, a third. And a week after _that_ , a fourth.” Her expression grew into something with a bit more conviction. “There’s no pattern to exactly when the attacks occur. It’s not bacterial, it’s not fungal, and it’s not viral – we’ve checked _everything_. Dr. Ostheim thinks it’s just an unrelated series of stress attacks, but he’s wrong, I just _know_ he is. I…” she trailed off then, and swallowed. “I couldn’t let this go on any longer.”

Krystal approached the lagomorph and placed her paw on her shoulder in a gesture of comfort. Wolf folded his arms, unsure of what exactly the hare wanted to do but unwilling to ask something that blunt when she was clearly having a moment. Fox took up that mantle, and asked the question in a more conciliatory way than Wolf ever would have been able to muster.

“Lucy, this is terrible, but… I’m not sure what we can do. Our specialty is in aerial combat, not psychiatry, or exotic pathogens, or whatever this might be.” The vulpine looked genuinely sad, Wolf noted.

The rabbit sniffed and rubbed her eyes, her moment over. “I know, but… I mean, I didn’t specifically ask for you as in, like… _all_ of you.” She pointedly looked at Krystal, and the vixen’s brow furrowed. Wolf grunted. _That_ made a lot more sense.

“I’m sorry”, Krystal said. “When you asked for help, I thought you meant –”

“I know – it’s my fault. I wasn’t clear enough.” Lucy smiled abashedly before turning to the rest of them. “I’m sorry for dragging all you guys out here, especially you three”, she said as she looked at Wolf and his compatriots. “I was sort of just asking for Krystal, hoping that she could maybe… analyze them, or something. I don’t know, it’s dumb.”

Krystal shook her head. “It’s not dumb – it makes perfect sense.” The vixen let her paw drop from Lucy’s shoulder. “But I’ll need to get closer to read them properly.”

“Of course”, Lucy responded. She looked up at the nurse, and the mouse nodded before pressing a button on her console, opening a door into the other half of the room.

Wolf watched closely as Krystal walked through that door and into the ward on the other side. He watched closely as she laid her hands on each of the animals’ heads in turn, her own eyes closed and a wide array of emotions playing out across her face. He’d thought Cerinians were a myth for most of his life: one of those old spacer legends that started as a true story and got garbled in translation over the years. A secret planet of telepaths hidden in an Oort cloud far beyond the Lylat System, somewhere past Octovar, only accessible by deftly navigating through a dense field of drifting ice and asteroids, where the denizens all had vibrant-colored fur and lived on islands that floated in the sky. It was one of those dumb tales you’d hear every so often when bar-hopping, usually spouted by a particularly drunken smuggler or pirate.

So imagine his surprise when he actually _met_ one. He still didn’t believe all that guff about mind powers – at least at first. It wasn’t until their teams had flown side-by-side during the Anglar Blitz that Wolf realized her abilities weren’t a bluff. He’d been party to Star Fox planning a counterstrike on the Anglars when Fox asked Krystal to user her telepathy for input. Wolf had pealed out a cruel laugh when Fox asked that, but he had to swallow it down later after Krystal proceeded to map out the Anglar base by ‘feeling’ where their minds were located in space, and the map ended up being 85% accurate when they launched the attack.

He’d never seen her properly at work though, directly reading animals’ minds as casually as he might read a book. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting: a light show, maybe, or for her to start chanting like this was a séance or ritual or something. Instead it was very low-key – she just touched their heads and stood there for a few moments before moving onto the next one.

When she reentered their side of the room, she looked disconcerted. “Well, I think I know what’s wrong with them – but I don’t know _why_.”

Lucy spoke up instantly, clearly chomping at the bit for a break. “What’s happening to them?”

“It’s… complicated.” She frowned. “As far as I can tell, they’re locked in a cycle of reliving memories: as soon as one is complete, another starts up again. They’re completely trapped like this. I don’t think they’re even aware on a conscious level, it’s like they’re stuck in a dream.” She tapped her muzzle with her paw. “But I don’t know how they could have ended up like this…” She looked at Lucy. “I need more time with them. If I can catch a hint of how this started, I might be able to figure out a way to end it. I can’t make any promises, though.”

The hare either ignored or didn’t mind that last statement of hers, launching into the vixen with a hug. “Thank you, thank you, _thank you!_ You have no idea how much of a help this is.” She released Krystal with a smile. “We’re _this_ much closer to fixing them, I just know it!”

Wolf thought her enthusiasm unfounded, but apparently it was infectious enough to spread to mostly everyone else in the room – even the rodent nurse cracked a small smile. Falco slapped Krystal on the back, Slippy and Fox were chatting with Lucy; even Fay was grinning harder than usual, talking Panther’s ear off by the looks of it.

But Krystal still looked unsure – and she met his eyes again. This time, he didn’t turn away. This time he nodded. _I understand_ , he nodded at her. _Everyone believes in you, but you don’t believe in yourself_.

She must have read his mind, literally, because she returned his nod with one of her own. They were on the same page with this. It made Wolf want to laugh: what a pair of broken canines they were, with such sordid histories littered with failures, both pining after Fox McCloud.

What could they do to fix themselves?

……….

The food served in the mess hall was a far cry from the quality Fox had come to expect from the rest of the station. He _thought_ he was eating a bug-burger – that’s what the label said, at least – but based on the complete and utter lack of flavor and its uncharacteristically mushy texture, he wasn’t entirely quite sure what he was shoveling in his mouth.

“The food here’s an acquired taste”, Lucy told him with a knowing, smug smile

Fox grinned at her, feeling like his smile might rival the kinds of sardonic grins shot by Wolf. “Really?”

The hare looked like she was trying a little too hard to contain a laugh. “Yes – it’s just no one has actually acquired it yet.”

He chuckled around another flavorless, texture-less mouthful. Lucy was seated to his right, and the two of them were joined by Slippy, Panther and Fay for lunch. Or breakfast, or brunch, or whatever this meal was. Krystal remained behind with the patients, determined to decipher the mystery of their ailment, while Falco and Wolf both went back to the ship instead. Fox was disappointed when they opted out of a shared meal with the rest of them – but after trying the food, he thought they’d probably made the right choice.

Slippy grimaced as he swallowed another spoonful of his cricket bowl. “This stuff is like… _anti_ -food.” Panther grunted in agreement, but Fay looked at the toad like he’d said something deeply offensive.

“Do you not have any spirit of adventure? Do you only want to spend the rest of your life living the same experiences over and over?” She looked at him with fire in her eyes before taking another triumphant bite of her food. “ _Every new flavor ish a new dishcovery!_ ”, she said with her mouth full, spraying a few bits of it across the table.

Panther eyed her warily. “ _What_ flavor?”, he intoned calmly, earning a laugh from the rest of them.

“So how did you guys all end up together, anyway?”, Lucy asked casually. _Too_ casually, Fox thought.

Fox was about to answer when Fay spoke up, thankfully remembering to swallow first. “All our ships exploded. Star Fox is letting us live with them till we buy new ones.”

Lucy looked at Fox, brow raised in surprise, and the vulpine nodded. “Yeah – that’s pretty much the long and short of it”, he confirmed.

She shrugged. “Well, y’all seem like you work together well enough.” Her expression grew a little mischievous. “I know for a fact at least two of you work _very_ well together.” Panther chuckled darkly, and Fox felt heat rising in his ears. Lucy laughed at his expression. “Oh come _on_ , Fox. We get the extranet out here in the middle of nowhere too, you know.”

“Yeah…”, he responded. “Yeah, I know. It’s just hard to get used to everyone knowing everything I do. Like I can’t even have a life without it being broadcast across the system.”

The table went silent at that proclamation, and Fox was worried he’d accidentally brought the vibe down and tried to remedy it. “Sorry for going so negative, it’s just –”

“No, no – I get it. I do.” Lucy offered him a calm, friendly smile. “It’s gotta be tough. On _all_ of you.” She looked around at the rest of the assembled table.

Panther looked unaffected. “Wolf’s really the only one of us who gets spare glances. Fay and I weren’t in the unit when… _how shall we say_ … Star Wolf became ‘popular’”.

If Fox thought discussing his petty personal problems was a bit of a downer, referencing Star Wolf’s role in the Lylat War was a total bummer. It would inevitably come up though – he knew it would. How could it not? The famed, renowned Star Fox unit – heroes of Lylat – sharing quarters with the infamous Star Wolf, champions of Venom. Their image might be rehabilitated in the public to a certain extent after all their good deeds in the Aparoid invasion and beyond; but were they well-regarded to such a point where people would see Fox and Wolf together, and their _teams_ together, and not feel uncomfortable at that idea?

And did Fox even care one way or the other?

Slippy must have caught his wayward expression, because he patted Fox’s shoulder. “Hey – it’s alright, Fox. It’ll all work out eventually.”

“Yeah”, the vulpine said with a sigh. “I know.”

After another few moments of uncomfortable quiet, Lucy spoke up again. “Hey! I know what would be a good pick-me-up.” She smiled at the four of them.

“How would you guys like to see the lab?”

……….

Wolf knew full well he was acting like a petulant child as he crammed the nutrient bar into his mouth back onboard the Great Fox; but he just couldn’t stand the idea of being around Fox while the vulpine was around other people who cared about him right now. Awareness of his borderline obsessively jealous streak was doing nothing to mitigate its effects.

He wasn’t even sure ‘jealousy’ was the right word for it. Wolf knew the feelings Fox had for his friends weren’t anything like his feelings towards the lupine himself, but there was this incredibly petty streak he had that ticked him off when Fox sought the companionship of others. Rationally, he knew it would be unhealthy for Fox to only have one person close to him, one person to confide in – but emotionally, it still grated on him.

And he knew damn well why too: because Fox was the only person _Wolf_ could confide in, and the fact that it didn’t go the other way around made it feel like a one-way street.

This wasn’t even beginning to get into the increasingly mounting guilt Wolf felt over his continuing capitalization of Fox’s time and attention either: that effervescent fear that stalked the lupine’s dreams and told him it was only a matter of time before he dragged Fox down into the vortex that was Wolf O’Donnell.

He absentmindedly balled the empty rapper of the now-consumed ration in his fist, and threw it at the wall in a fit of rage. Of course, it only flew about half a foot before drifting this way and that and slowly falling to the ground right in front of him, touching down daintily right by his boot. He glared darkly at that: even his acts of anger were impotent. He picked it up and threw it properly in the garbage before leaving the kitchen.

He wasn’t even sure where he was going, or if he was even going anywhere at all. The Great Fox was still largely unfamiliar to him, and it didn’t take too long for him to lose himself inside its labyrinthine hallways. Not that he cared – losing himself was the whole point of this impulse adventure through Fox’s home anyway. Though you’d be forgiven for not ever realizing this _was_ Fox’s home, he thought. It was every bit as shiny and sterile as that research station. Hell, he thought you’d be forgiven for not realizing this was _anyone’s_ home.

The sound of a loudly-spoken curse word and the signature clang of metal on metal broke him out of his intentionally intention-less meandering. Curious, he followed the direction of the noise and wound up in the hangar bay.

Falco was there, unsurprisingly. The bird had opted to come with him back to the ship, though neither of them said a word to each other on the return journey. What _was_ surprising is that he was working on the shuttle Wolf and his team had arrived in.

“What are you doing?”, Wolf asked, unable to help himself.

The avian swore again and dropped his wrench, shocked by the lupine’s sudden appearance. He glared at Wolf and picked up the wrench to resume… whatever it was he was working on. “What’s it _look_ like I’m doing?”, he snapped. “I’m fixing your damn ship.”

Wolf chuckled. “Don’t bother. We’re planning to sell it for scrap soon anyway.” His expression soured. “I only even bought it to make it look like we weren’t desperate in the first place.” He was surprised to hear himself admit this out loud. “Didn’t work though. If anything, it probably made us look even _more_ desperate, flying a piece of crap like that.”

Falco stopped his mechanical ministrations for a second while Wolf spoke before resuming. “Yeah, well – it gives me something to do. All our ships are in top-notch condition. Can’t make ‘em any more perfect than they already are.”

Wolf nodded his understanding. Falco was doing this to occupy himself, then.

“’Sides, you’ll get more money out of the deal by selling it as a functional craft than for scrap.” The bird continued to loosen bolts, finally opening a panel to reveal the state of the interior electronics. “ _Jesus fuck_. Forget what I said. You’re going to have to scrap this thing.”

Wolf barked out a laugh. “I was wondering when you’d get a look at the innards.”

“How much did you even pay for this thing?”

“Three hundred credits.”

Falco stared at him. “Dirt cheap.” He took a look at the wiring and shook his head. “Still not worth it though.”

Wolf frowned. “Can’t put a price on pride.” He meant for that to sound snarky and confident, but it came out sounding sad and weak instead.

Falco only looked at him in response, and Wolf felt not for the first time that the bird was sizing him up, guessing how much of a relative danger he was. And the funny thing was that he _was_ a danger – just not in the way Falco probably guessed.

“You’re serious about this whole ‘you and Fox’ thing, aren’t you?”, he finally asked.

The lupine grinned. “What tipped you off?”

“Fuck off”, he responded, though Wolf laughed – maybe he was imagining things, but he didn’t sound as angry as he had been. “I’m just having a hard time figuring out what he sees in you.”

Now _that_ stung, loathe as he was to admit it. He shrugged exaggeratedly; if Falco was going to get rough, he was going to get rough right back. “I don’t know either. Definitely can’t be my good looks, sterling wit, confidence, mastery of the air, rocking bod and massive cock. It’s a mystery.”

But the bird didn’t rise to the bait, still staring at Wolf almost like he pitied him – which stung even more than everything else. “You’re a real dick, you know that?”

Wolf bit down to prevent himself from throwing a comeback. He waited a second to respond, realizing he was quickly losing the desire to keep this up. “I do”, he said quietly. “…I don’t know what he sees in me either, to be honest.”

Falco cocked his head at that – it must not have been the response he was expecting. The avian looked at him awkwardly for a moment before speaking up. “Look – you’re not a bad guy. Not any more at least.” It looked like it pained him somewhat to say it out loud. “I’m sure there are plenty of reasons for Fox to like you, though damn if I can see them.”

“How do you know?”, Wolf asked. “That I’m not a bad guy anymore?”

Falco stared down at the wrench in his hands. “Man, I don’t fucking know – I just _do_.” He sat on a nearby stool with a sigh. “You were never as bad as the other guys in your old team – and holy _shit_ were they bad.”

Wolf grimaced. “I know. Leon tried to torture me last week. During the Fichina thing.”

Falco looked up at him like a shot. “No shit? I heard Leon was involved, but I had no idea… fuck.”

“Yeah.” Wolf said it curtly. He really didn’t want to talk anymore about Leon right now.

Though it looked like Falco wasn’t going to let it drop. “But that’s the thing then – if you knew those guys were shit, Leon and Pigma and the rest of ‘em – why did you even team up with them in the first place?”

The lupine fought the urge to growl. “I don’t owe you an explanation, bird boy.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself, O’Donnell. This shit right here’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Falco gestured wildly with his arms from his seated position. “Maybe you, I don’t know, let Fox in or whatever – but how is anyone _else_ supposed to trust you when you do shit like this all the time? How does your team even put up with you?”

Wolf bared his teeth for a second, but Falco stared back at him, unaffected by the display. Wolf felt the fight leave his system, and he sighed. “I don’t know”, he answered.

Falco chuckled then. Wolf looked back at him in shock and the bird continued talking. “Okay. Now I get it. Shit’s making more sense now.” He leaned in forward, almost conspiratorially. “You feel _sorry_ for yourself, don’t you? Big Bad Wolf is now Big _Sad_ Wolf. You did some bad things, which means you’re always going to be bad.” He had the gall to look like he had Wolf all figured out – and the worst part was that he did.

“Well I got news for you, buddy. People fucking change.” He looked dead serious. “Just because you got a shit hand dealt to you, or you did some shitty things, doesn’t mean your life’s guaranteed to be shit forever. So grow the fuck up and stop wallowing in it.”

He got back up from the stool and resumed working on the shuttle, even though he already all but said it was worthless to put the effort into. “How do you know?”, Wolf asked. “How can you possibly know that?”

Falco half-turned to him. “Because I used to be in a gang, dipshit.” He laughed at the momentary surprise visible on Wolf’s face. “Where did you think Fox even found me? You thought I was an _academy boy_ or something? No way – I was a fucking pirate, man. Real low-level trash. Ran with a group operating out of Zoness.” He went back to tightening bolts. “Met Fox early on in the war, before Slippy’d even graduated yet. He was in the area with Peppy, running some training routine or some shit. My gang hit a freighter in the area and Fox came to the rescue – handed all our asses to us, but he had a harder time with me. I escaped, but tracked him down later that day and asked to join them, and he accepted – against Peppy’s wishes of course.” He stopped for a beat and shrugged. “Rest is history.”

Wolf stood in quiet thought for a few moments, the only sound the rhythmic tightening of the bolts on the shuttle. “Why?”, he asked at last. At Falco’s confused expression, he continued. “Why did you ask to join them?”

Falco’s eyes narrowed. “Shit, man – I don’t know. I hated flying with those fuckers, but they were all I knew – then Fox beat the shit out of us, but he seemed cool.” He put the wrench down with a sigh. “Look, it doesn’t matter _why_ I chose to get out. What matters is that I _did_.” He eyed Wolf cautiously. “You did the same, eventually. Saved our asses during the Aparoid shitshow, and kept showing up after that.”

“I only did what I did because I had to.”

“ _Bullshit!_ ”, Falco shouted. “You can tell yourself that all you want, but you did it because you _wanted_ to.” He started to walk away, intent on leaving the hangar. “Now are you going to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get back to being around Fox, or not?”

Wolf wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but he was afraid it might be hope. “Yeah”, he said with a nod. “Let’s get back to the station.”

As they walked down the hall, one question lingered in Wolf’s mind. “Why did _you_ come back to the ship, anyway?”

Falco’s expression was somewhere halfway between a grin and a grimace.

“Same as you: I was looking to wallow in my own shit.”

……….

The robin’s thoughts were skewing wildly to and fro, same as they had been this past hour. But Krystal persisted. She _had_ to persist, if she was ever going to get to the bottom of this.

She took a break from perusing the avian mind to swallow another bite of food and wash it down with a swig of water, both courtesy of the rodent nurse manning this dark, hidden corner of the medbay. And it _was_ dark, in more ways that one. Krystal never enjoyed delving into other animals’ thoughts and feelings, though she knew it might be necessary – but the memories being re-experienced by this particular group were so all-consuming in their vivid ferocity. They weren’t just remembering old experiences, good and ill – they were for all intents and purposes _reliving_ them, their minds reacting as if this was the first time each remembered event was unfolding. The emotions each animal felt in reaction to the relived memory were so strong they gave Krystal a headache. It was hard work feeling through someone else’s mind without allowing it to color her own perception of the world, allowing it to affect her own emotions.

But she continued, because deep down, she knew she was the only person who could solve this riddle. That had become obvious about a half-hour ago, when she witnessed the canine patient relive a memory she’d already felt him relive earlier, and the second trek through it was just as potent as the first. She knew then that these animals weren’t just thrown into this state. No, this state was being _maintained_. And the only way that was possible was if someone or something was actively maintaining it.

But who, or what?

She’d felt something earlier in the day too, something approach Fox and touch his mind for just a fleeting second. It was impossible for her not to be aware of what everyone around her was feeling, at least on a simple base level – and she _felt_ the invasion of the vulpine’s mind clear as day. As far as she was concerned, it couldn’t be a coincidence. Whatever had brushed up against Fox had to be connected to this situation with the memory-locked animals. She just had to find the right mental signature and hone in on it. She knew she could do it – it was simply a matter of time and effort.

Diving into someone’s mind was like diving into an ocean: their thoughts, emotions and memories drifting around like currents. But each person’s sea of thoughts felt distinctly their own. Any interruption of a mind’s natural flow by an outside source should stick out as easily as a fish swimming upstream. ‘Rogue currents’, her instructor had called them all those years ago by the reflection pool, using a staff to stir up the waters within as an illustrative tool that stuck with Krystal so many years later.

She just had to find the rogue current, and swim up towards its source.

It took another solid twenty minutes or so for her to catch the first wave. It was difficult work: she had to go back through each animal’s memories to the point where they were first sent into this state, which was made harder by the fact that the memories in question were ‘playing out of order’ due to the state itself. But she’d found what she was looking for within the mind of the robin: a normal memory, preparing for bed, cleaning of the beak, settling beneath the sheets – then a sudden shock, and the instant flow of a depressing childhood memory being relived.

Krystal ‘played’ this turn over and over, feeling for what the robin must have felt in that moment she was struck, searching for the rogue current. She caught the barest ebb of it and held on for dear life, seeking it, riding it. She felt the same current within the other four animals in this very room, confirming her suspicions that this was the source of their state. She expanded her mind outward, feeling for every touch of this mind-stream in the station, only to find nothing. So she forced herself to look ever farther and farther beyond, knowing that even her mind had limits, hoping it wasn’t _too_ far away, until –

_There_.

The source of the rogue current, plain as day. Somewhere in space. Not too far. Right nearby, in fact, relatively speaking – here in Meteo, a few clicks away. She wasn’t sure if the source felt its discovery or not, but she didn’t think it did, based on its lack of response to her finding it. She drew her comm-device and made a note of the general vicinity of the source, and left the room, making sure to thank the nurse first.

She needed to tell the rest of them. They had a mission to accomplish.

……….

“So, here’s where the magic happens.”

Lucy was donned the same as the rest of them – covered head-to-toe in a full-on hazmat suit, topped with a ridiculous-looking bubble of a helmet that made Fox feel like he was staring out at the world through the eyes of a fish trapped in a bowl. Every movement he made felt incredibly awkward, and he wondered how the researchers could possibly operate like this without bumbling into everything.

But his lack of enthusiasm wasn’t entirely shared by the rest of their group. Slippy’s eyes lit up as he took a look at some of the equipment in use, striking up a conversation with Lucy in which half the words went soaring over Fox’s head. Fay looked excited just to be wearing the suit, pressing her gloved paw into her belly every so often and giggling at the effect, commenting to Panther how it felt like she was a marshmallow.

Fox walked right along with them as Lucy gave the tour, pointing out this and that giant piece of equipment full of moving pistons and humming with energy, some of them separated from the researchers by thick panes of reinforced glass not dissimilar to those in the medbay. He mostly kept quiet though, his thoughts thoroughly elsewhere. He hadn’t been able to get Panther’s words out of his head all day, and he desperately wanted to talk to Wolf – which wasn’t possible at the moment, seeing as the lupine was in absentia, and it’d be difficult to stage a conversation about where their relationship was at while wearing comically oversized safety gear in public anyway.

Lucy came to a stop in front of a sealed pair of large, imposing doors, the bottom of which was lined with a repeating yellow-and-black warning band. “Now, this baby is the pièce de résistance.” Fox could see her eager grin from within her helmet, every bit as excited as it was when she’d stare at her father’s Arwing when they were both children. Fox knew he’d been the same way, albeit for a very different reason. He wanted to fly them, but Lucy wanted to understand how they worked.

An affable-looking aardvark approached their group. “Looking to show them the money shot then, eh?”, he asked.

“Of course! It wouldn’t be a tour without the most exciting part.” She stood side-by-side with the aardvark and introduced him. “This is Dr. Pendleton. He’s the lead scientist in charge of this next bit.”

“Don’t call me that – it makes me feel old.” He held out his thickly-gloved paw for each of them to shake in turn. “Just call me Harry.”

“Pleased to meet you”, Fox said, feeling like his voice sounded tinny and muffled from within the helmet.

“Likewise – I’ve heard a lot about the famous Fox McCloud, it’s nice to finally meet him.” He took in the rest of them with a glance. “And the illustrious members of Star Fox and Star Wolf, at that.”

Lucy elbowed him. “Why do you always have to be such a suck-up?”

He grinned. “It never hurts to brush elbows with the rich and famous.”

“Or just ‘famous’, in this case”, Panther said jokingly, earning a laugh from the aardvark.

“Famous is more than I could ever hope to aspire to anyway.” He approached the door and withdrew a keycard before turning back to them. “Now, what you’re about to see is technically top-secret, commissioned by the highest levels of the Cornerian government.” Lucy rolled her eyes at Fox from behind Harry’s back, though she was smiling when she did so. “So none of you are allowed to go around talking about this on the extranet. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow to gossip about secret Meteo research plastered all over WHEEL.”

“We’ll be good. I promise”, Fox said earnestly, earning a snicker from Lucy.

“I’ll hold you to that”, Harry said with a slightly manic grin before sliding his card through the scanner. 

The heavy doors began to slide apart, revealing a bright room beyond. Fox lifted his paw to his eyes for a moment as he waited for them to adjust to the brightness. When they did, he felt his jaw drop a little.

“Well don’t just stand there”, Harry said to them with a shooing motion. “Go inside! Check it out. I don’t want all our hard work to go unappreciated.”

Fox took a cautious series of steps forward, finally coming to a stop at a guardrail at the edge of the balcony ringing the room beyond: a precipice overlooking the chasm, really. The room was cylindrical, extending about fifty floors both up and down from where their group was standing. A series of concentric rings were hovering in the middle of the room, orbiting around a small blue mass that was too bright to look at for more than a second before Fox had to turn his eyes away.

“Oh yeah, forgot to warn you guys: don’t look at the star. Obviously.” Fox huffed out a laugh at how casually she said it, as if having a miniature star hovering around inside a space station was such a blasé occurrence.

“How did you guys even _build_ this?”, Slippy asked with something Fox thought was awe, or at least as close to it as you could get.

“With extreme difficulty, and a lot of money”, Harry responded. “We’ve technically been able to create stars for quite some time now – the science has been kept secret so far, but it’s all there. The only roadblock has been budgeting the resources for it.”

“A roadblock we finally surmounted when this project was greenlit”, Lucy chimed in, a proud smile on her face.

“And this greenlighting had nothing at all to do with Peppy being in charge of the Navy now, huh?”, Fox said jokingly. Lucy winked at him in response.

Harry gestured to the spectacle going on before them. “True Blue – that’s what we’ve called the star, by the way – is the centerpiece of a wide variety of long-term experiments being conducted here. Lucy’s team is working on gravity, for example; but that’s only one of the many pans we’ve got on the fryer right now.”

“What do you do?”, Slippy asked.

Harry smiled proudly. “I maintain True Blue. Keep her running as true and blue as she can be.”

“Isn’t this dangerous?”, Panther asked. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that stars aren’t stable. They can change.” He left the details of their potential change unspoken, and Fox wondered if he didn’t want to say it out loud and jinx it. Discussing supernovas and black holes on a station housing a star was probably a faux pas, he guessed.

“Yes – it’s extremely dangerous”, Harry responded. “That’s why we need a whole team of people just in charge of keeping the damn thing stable.”

“But the potential benefits!”, Slippy exclaimed. “We’ve _never_ had a star in a controlled experimental environment before. Energy, gravity, the relationship between space and time – this could change _everything!_ ”

The aardvark smiled and pointed at Slippy. “ _He_ gets it.” This earned a bashful expression from the amphibian.

Fox smiled along with them, but felt himself falling a bit more on Panther’s side of the fence. Call it his warrior instincts, but something about keeping a star lying around felt dangerous, regardless of how carefully controlled it was.

He turned to ask Lucy for more details about this when he saw her looking at her comm device. She looked up at him and smiled. “Guess we’re going to have to cut the tour a bit short.”

“Why?”, Fay asked, sounding disappointed to not be able to stare at the star anymore, either unaffected by its light or simply uncaring about the damage it was dealing to her retinas.

Lucy passed the device to Fox, and as he read the message plastered on the screen, she responded to Fay’s question.

“Krystal contacted me. Your schedules just got a bit busier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we are, finished with chapter three. Next chapter is the climax of this story, and it's probably both the hardest-to-write and weirdest thing I've yet put in one of these stories, so get ready for that.
> 
> As always, thanks for the kudos and comments - I light up every time I log back in after a while to see a bunch of stuff in my inbox.


	4. Chapter 4

# IV

Wolf and Falco had barely made it out of the airlocked pathway connecting the Great Fox to the station before bumping into the rest of their teams, standing in a group in the middle of the hangar bay with an array of expressions on their faces ranging from excited to anxious. Fox turned to face them at their approach – he (along with a few of the others) was wearing some kind of hazmat suit that looked frankly ridiculous.

“What are you wearing?”, Wolf asked him a little snidely.

Fox chuckled. “Just got back from a tour of the labs – I’ll tell you about it later. Krystal has important news.”

The lupine glanced at the vixen, who for her part looked a little uncomfortable to suddenly be the center of attention. “I was just telling everyone before the two of you arrived. I think I’ve found the cause of the attacks.”

Falco nodded. “Good. So you know how to treat them, then?” The avian folded his arms and looked at Lucy, who shook her head.

“She means she found it”, the hare said. “As in, _literally_ found it. A location.”

Falco cocked his head in confusion, but Wolf frowned. He knew where this was going, and he didn’t like it.

“Well, I felt the area whoever or whatever is causing this is acting from”, Krystal specified, and it reminded Wolf all too much of her detecting that Anglar base. “But… it’s strange.”

“Strange how?”, Wolf asked.

Lucy drew her comm-device and projected a holo-still of the local space around the station. “Krystal traced the psychic attack as coming from here.” She pointed to a collection of asteroids not too far away. “The problem is that, as far as I can tell… there isn’t actually anything there. Or at least, there _shouldn’t_ be.”

Panther put his paw to his muzzle and stroked it slowly. “It could easily be a pirate outpost. They’re common in Meteo.” Wolf thought the feline sounded as if he spoke from personal experience.

“This far out, though?” Slippy frowned. “I mean it’s possible. But this feels way too off the beaten path for a bandit base.”

“Off the beaten path is the best locale for such a base”, Panther responded, and Slippy shrugged.

Fox finished shrugging himself out of the hazmat suit. “Alright. I say we all go check it out.” He took a closer look at the holo-map Lucy projected. “The Great Fox should be able to navigate through this gap in the asteroids here”, he pointed to a passage between the rocks, one that Wolf thought looked unnatural. “We can go scope out the situation – see what there is to see.” He scanned his gaze over the assembled group. “Everyone on board?”

The vulpine was met with a chorus of assent from his own team, and as he looked to Wolf, the lupine afforded him a slow nod. It wasn’t as if they had a choice anyway – they were living on the Great Fox just as much as Fox’s team. They’d be dragged into this regardless.

Fox put on one of those dashing, heroic smiles that simultaneously made Wolf want to push him away for fear of ruining it, and hold him close with the hope it might rub off on himself.

“Let’s get moving.”

……….

The passage through the asteroids was a precarious one.

Krystal kept her mind steady as the Great Fox made its way through the narrow corridor that snaked through this particularly dense portion of Meteo, occasionally blasting some of the smaller asteroids that floated too close for comfort. She focused on that rogue mental current she’d detected earlier, honing in on its source, but keeping her mind at an emotional distance so as to avoid potential discovery of her probing. It got stronger the further they travelled, and therefore required less effort on her part to track.

Everyone was there on the bridge with her – sans Lucy of course, who’d stayed behind on the station for work. She could feel the variety in their emotions, and inadvertently caught some of the stronger stray thoughts in her mental net. Fox was steadfast, his focus on the mission overriding everything else, as was always the case. Falco was a mixture of boredom and uneasiness, itching over a potential fight should this foray turn violent. Slippy was calm, mostly because he was giving himself tasks to accomplish, flitting back and forth across the stations and consoles littered around the room.

These psychic sounds were familiar to her, and made a sort of song that was comforting in its regularity. But they were interrupted by a new melody comprised of their guests. Fay was a ball of excited energy, eager for whatever was to come: a hyperactive staccato that left her a little exhausted. Panther was almost the platonic ideal of a feline: coiled, dark, smooth, and ready to pounce should the moment call for it. And Wolf… Wolf was turmoil, a raging storm in a teacup ready to run over the brim. Though the storm was subsided somewhat from what it had been this morning – Krystal took that for a hopeful sign.

The way the songs of their teams mixed was cacophonous. Perhaps someday it could form a cohesive harmony; but for now, Krystal found it to be a lot of angry, buzzing, dissonant noise. It was mentally tiring.

Slippy must have noticed her put her paw to her forehead, the clear and universal sign that she had a headache. He floated his anti-grav chair towards her and sat by her side. It was all he had to do, he knew. They’d had this little ritual for years, neither one of them ever actually admitting it existed out loud.

It brought her immense comfort, and she was scared and sad to know he’d soon be gone.

The tableau of joy and pain was interrupted by something else. Something _other_. The psychic signature was stronger now – they were almost right on top of it.

“What _is_ that?”, she heard Falco utter from his place close to the bridge’s viewing window. She followed his gaze to its source, and felt her brow raise in surprise.

She felt rather than saw Wolf fold his arms behind her. “So much for ‘nothing’ being out here. Guess your rabbit friend was lying.”

Fox turned to him with narrowed eyes. “I highly doubt that. She probably didn’t know.”

Wolf gave him a look that spoke of beleaguered disbelief. “Oh, come on. How could a Cornerian scientist not know about another research station so nearby?”

Krystal kept her eyes on the weathered, derelict station in front of them, half-hidden amongst the asteroids. It was beaten down, dark, grimy – its matte siding rusted away in parts, hard to make out against the distant light of Solar peeking through the rocks, turning the entire scene into a dismal chiaroscuro. There was evil inside; she could feel it.

“She didn’t know”, the vixen said. “I don’t think many people know about this place.” She let her mind expand outward. “…I think it’s abandoned for quite some time”, she said truthfully, simultaneously knowing the residual emotions that lurked there were every bit as dangerous as a physical threat to someone like her.

“Then how could it cause the attacks?”, Slippy asked her, and she knew all eyes were on her once again.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s…” she could feel it. The rogue currents pulling in to this place, this _terrible_ place – but as they washed in on its source, they obscured it. “It’s here. I _know_ the source is here. But there’s so much mental noise around it, I can’t pin it down.” She knew they were all sharing discomfited looks with each other – not at her, but at the thought of whatever might be lurking in that abandoned station. The music of the room took an ominous turn.

“We have to go inside”, Fox said, voice even. “If there really is something in there attacking Cornerian scientists, we need to neutralize it.”

Krystal loathed his words despite knowing how true they were.

“If you’re going in, then so am I”, Wolf spoke up from beside him. “You’re not flying solo into a place that looks like the set for a horror movie.” Falco nodded alongside him, apparently keen to get in on the action himself.

“Yeah! Star Wolf will provide you cover”, Fay said excitedly – but Panther shook his head.

“I’m afraid that isn’t possible”, he said almost abashedly, “For either you or the captain. Neither of us have ships except that shuttle, and I wouldn’t trust it to help us in a dangerous situation.” Fay wilted at his words.

Slippy cleared his throat, and they turned to face him. “Well, we have four Arwings. I need to stay here to monitor you guys and provide support, so someone can use mine.”

“I’m taking it”, Wolf said without asking, which earned a bit of annoyed look from Slippy. “Panther can use Krystal’s –”

“No.” The turned to look at her again, and she repeated herself. “I’m going with you too.”

She got a smattering of unsure looks, but she focused on the only one she knew mattered. Fox looked hesitant, but he ultimately sighed and nodded. “I’m not going to be able to dissuade you, so fine.” He eyed her carefully. “ _But_ ”, he warned. “If you can tell something’s going to cause you to have a psychic attack, you have to promise you’ll back out. Alright?”

She knew he was thinking of what happened with the Gorasi back on Titania. She nodded slowly, though. She couldn’t explain it, but she simply _knew_ they’d need her.

“Well what are we waiting for?”, Falco asked.

……….

As Fox’s Arwing landed in the empty hangar bay, he knew something was wrong here.

They realized the hangar doors to the seemingly abandoned station had been left wide open when they began their approach, and decided it was as good a spot as any to land – though he guessed they probably all found it a little disturbing. It was almost like they were invited inside.

He brushed that distressing thought aside with a shake of his head and reached for the helmet at his feet. Slippy’d determined that, based on the number of apertures in the station’s hull, odds were most of it was exposed to the vacuum of space – so they’d suited up in full Zero-G gear before departure. Helmet fully secure, Fox opened the cockpit and hopped out, the electromagnets on his boots making up for the lack of gravity in the exposed hangar.

He made a full three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn as his teammates mirrored his earlier actions, taking in the full scope of the hangar bay. He could see the Great Fox hovering a fair distance away, little asteroids here and there obscuring it from view as they floated past the empty space where the hangar doors should have been. He noted that they weren’t ripped off – just left open. That brought him some level of relief. At least they weren’t dealing with some kind of ridiculous space monster or something.

Probably.

Wolf’s voice came over the comms. “Well this place is a dungheap.” Fox turned to watch the lupine approach his position with that characteristic zero-gravity gait that Peppy always called ‘space-hopping’. He thought Wolf’s suit looked a little too tight, but it was the biggest they had. At least it was still air-sealed.

“You won’t get any opposition from me on that front”, Fox responded. “I wonder what happened here.”

“Nothing good, that’s for sure”, Falco chimed in.

Krystal looked distracted, focused on something off to the side of the bay. “Krystal?”, Fox asked. “You find something interesting already?”

“…Possibly.” She pointed to a broken-down lift-car fallen on its side. Lift-cars weren’t particularly unusual – they were mostly used for moving small ships around without the pilots having to actually get in the ships and try to fly them inside a hangar. But there was something about this one that struck Fox as odd, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.

Falco cocked his head, the large helmet turning along with it. “So? It’s just a lift-car. What’s special about that?”

Wolf approached and knelt down in front of the piece of equipment. “Take a closer look, bird boy. This thing’s old as shit.”

And when Wolf said that, the unusualness clicked in Fox’s mind. “That’s an L-carriage. They were standard back when my dad was in the academy. We had one growing up – he’d use it to move his Arwing.” He approached the lift-car and ran a thickly gloved paw along its logo, sweeping the dust aside and making it more visible. “…Now that I think about it, _that_ one was a hand-me-down from one of his professors.”

Falco folded his arms. “Okay, so it’s old. I get what you’re suggesting, but just because there’s an old piece of equipment here doesn’t mean _everything_ here is that old.”

“True”, Fox admitted, though he couldn’t shake off the thought that it really _did_ mean that.

Wolf got up and looked over to a rusted doorway at the back of the hangar. “Let’s keep moving. We’re not going to learn anything else from this hangar. Place is busted: all the important stuff probably floated out into space years ago.”

Fox nodded and took point, leading them deeper inside the station, and distinctly feeling like he was stepping into someplace forbidden. Falco and Wolf worked together to pry the door open, and they all had to activate the flashlights on the sides of their helmets to see anything in the dark hallway beyond.

They were quiet for the first few moments, not entirely sure where they were headed. The halls were lined with crates and small rooms, all of them meticulously cleared of anything interesting. Wolf let out a chuckle after about twenty minutes of exploration. Fox glanced at him. “What’s so funn?.”

Wolf turned to reveal his grinning face inside the helmet. “I was just thinking – places like this bring back memories of the war. When we docked in at that new station, it felt so foreign. So _different_. Nothing like the ugly gray research stations Corneria had all over Lylat. But this place?” He gestured at the foreboding hallways. “This feels familiar.”

Fox was surprised. “I thought you didn’t like to talk about the war?”

Wolf’s smile dropped. “I don’t”, he said with a too-casual shrug. “Just thought of it, is all.”

Fox stared at him for another second, but let it slide. This place very clearly was not the optimal location to hold a conversation.

“Hey!”, Falco shouted. “Think I found something.”

The pair of canines walked towards the bird, who was feeling around a panel of the wall with his hands. Krystal stood beside him, staring carefully at the spot herself. “I think it’s a false wall”, the avian revealed. “Just need to… find the right place…”

Wolf drew his blaster and started shooting holes into the seams around Falco, earning a squawk and a look of pure unfiltered rage after the lupine was finished. Wolf met the glare with a lopsided grin, and Fox swatted him on the arm.

Krystal pressed between them and pried gently at the panel, now blasted aside by Wolf – revealing a secret side-hallway even darker than the main one. The quartet eyed each other cautiously before slowly – carefully – pressing into the unknown.

They emerged in what appeared to be a laboratory on the other side, and Falco couldn’t help the word that escaped his throat.

“Damn…”

He trailed off, and Fox found himself agreeing with the sentiment.

The room was lined with long-dead monitors and consoles that looked at least half a century old. There were exposed wires everywhere, medical chairs with too many sharp instruments stocked near them, and ominous-looking glass capsules lined against one of the walls that seemed perfectly sized to house an animal. Most of it was on its side, and many of the pieces of equipment were in pieces, scattered across the floor alongside the copious glass shards of broken beakers and mysteriously-colored stains.

“Cozy”, Wolf said after a while, causing Fox to jump half out of his fur in surprise. “I can see why Ms. Hare-ball didn’t know about this place. Bet you anything this is a secret black ops laboratory or some shit.” He pointed at the capsules. “Probably making clones of the top brass so they can live forever.”

Fox stared at him. “Why do you have to go so far all the time?”

“Geez, Fox. Just trying to lighten the mood.” He holstered his blaster, seemingly done using it to defend himself and/or casually terrorize Fox’s teammates. “Really, though – this place is fucked. I was being at least a little serious about the secret lab thing.”

“I know”, Fox spoke in confidence. “And I’m on the same page. Something very wrong happened here. Or might _still_ be happening, actually, if it’s causing the researchers to have these… memory-attacks.”

Wolf put a paw on his shoulder. “Hey – chin-up, pup. We’ll figure it out.”

The vulpine smiled and laid his own paw overtop of Wolf’s.

“You two done having a couple’s moment? I think Krystal found something”, Falco called from the other side of the lab.

As they approached, Krystal pointed down another hallway. “The source”, she said quietly. “It’s this direction. I can feel it.”

She sounded incredibly on edge, which put Fox on edge by proxy. “You have any idea what we might be walking into?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s… hard to explain to someone who doesn’t have my abilities, but I can try.” She peered down the hallway again. “It’s like… it’s obscured by its own mind. Whatever it is, it’s putting out these waves of thought, and the waves are creating so much interference I can’t penetrate them.”

Fox nodded. “I get it, at least somewhat.” He took a deep breath and drew his blaster, Falco and Wolf mirroring him a second later (Wolf looking annoyed at having to redraw it so soon). Fox looked at each of them in turn. “Everyone be on guard. We have no idea what we’re about to walk into.”

Fox and Wolf headed in first, walking side-by-side, with Falco and Krystal lingering a bit behind. “Stay sharp”, Fox whispered. “Keep your eyes peeled, and be ready for anyth –”

A metal door slid down with a loud _clang_ behind Fox. He and Wolf turned on a dime and Fox called out. “ _Falco! Krystal!_ ”

“We’re alright”, Krystal responded from the other side. “But we’re cut off. We need to find another way around.”

Fox growled. “Dammit”. He glanced at Wolf, and the lupine jerked his head towards the hall beyond. “Alright, we’ll try and meet up separately. You two stay safe, you hear?”

“Way ahead of you, Fox”, Falco responded. “You hang in too.”

“I plan on it.” Fox heard the echoing sounds of their footsteps diminish as they walked away, and he turned back to Wolf. “Alright, we should keep moving. With any luck we’ll rendezvous with them before encountering… Wolf?”

The lupine’s expression was vacant for a second, before morphing into a rictus of pain as he crumbled onto the floor.

“Wolf!”

Fox knelt beside him, and felt it too. That _something_ that had brushed against him earlier in the day, back on the station – it was back, and it was _much_ more forceful this time. He gritted his teeth as he felt the intrusion into his mind. He held out for as long as he could, sputtering as he did, before his mind went blank.

He fell to the floor, and his mind fell even further.

……….

_He watches the dust cloud roll over the dunes in the distance, beyond the climate wall, framed by the leagues of cropland that extend almost all the way to the horizon. Windmills so tall he has to tilt his head all the way back to see the tips of their spires are dotted throughout the far-reaching acreage, drawing in the moisture of the atmosphere and seeding it across the naturally arid planet surface. He doesn’t know how they work though – not yet. He only knows that they do, and he knows because his father told him so._

_“Fox! Company’s here!”_

_The vulpine’s ears perk at the pronouncement, and he turns to face said father with an excited grin. He’s calling him from the homestead, and Fox can see him standing there, waving his arm at him. The vulpine gets up with a giggle and runs towards his father, jumping up and into his arms as he reaches him. The older fox lifts him and turns him around as he laughs before setting him back down and ruffling the fur on his head._

_“What’re you doing out here, anyway?” He lowers the sunglasses on his muzzle, giving the younger vulpine a curious and almost mischievous grin._

_“Watching the clouds”, he responds, naturally. What else would he be doing?_

_The older fox half-turns to the single-story house with an expectant expression. “Well, come on! The clouds will always be there, but your uncle Peppy has to leave in a few hours.”_

_Fox doesn’t stop to listen to whatever else his dad has to say – the revelation that his favorite (and only) uncle is visiting is enough to get him to run inside. He forgets to take his shoes off as he slides the glass door leading to the kitchen aside, tracking remnants of the dusty earth inside along with him. He runs through the kitchen, through the hall, and enters the living room._

_Uncle Peppy is already there, sitting on a chair with his legs crossed, glass of iced tea in his paw. Aunt Vivian is sitting across from him with Lucy on her lap, laughing at something Peppy must have just said. As he enters, he runs up to Peppy and hugs the hare, earning another chorus of laughs from the older rabbits. Lucy jumps out of her mother’s arms and runs towards him, jumping into her father’s lap alongside Fox, causing Peppy to exhale a heavy breath._

_James laughs from his place at the entrance to the room. “Bit off more than you can handle there, Hare?”_

_“You wish, McCloud.” Peppy stands up with both children clinging to his arms. Fox laughs at being lifted in the air, and he can hear laughter ringing throughout the room. Peppy lets them down and approaches his dad. As they shake paws, Lucy taps Fox on the shoulder and speaks loudly in his ear._

_“You’re it!”_

_She peels off through the house, and Fox runs after her, ignoring a half-hearted admonishment from his father for tracking dirt everywhere._

_Fox doesn’t understand what’s wrong with dirt. The ground is made up of it, after all. Why shouldn’t you like the ground? Maybe his dad just prefers the air. He does like to fly a lot, after all – promises he’ll teach Fox how to one day too, and the vulpine is very proud of this fact, making sure to tell everyone he knows._

_He chases Lucy through the house, pretending he’s in the cockpit of his dad’s Arwing._

……….

_“You ungrateful piece of shit!”_

_The older lupine slaps his son with a backhand as Wolf watches from the stairway, hidden, afraid. He doesn’t know what to do. His dad is hurting his brother, but he loves both of them, and he knows Ulf must have done something bad again. He was always doing bad things. Wolf feels torn between them, like he’s being pulled apart at the seams one thread at a time._

_His dad smells like that bad stuff he drinks again, and his eyes are clouded over. Ulf usually walks away when Dad hits him, but this time he stands his ground, staring the older wolf in the eyes._

_“_ I’m _the piece of shit, huh? The one who puts the fucking food on the table? I fucking bankroll your lifestyle – you should be_ thanking _me.” There’s anger in his eyes that Wolf recognizes. He recognizes it because it looks so much like their father’s._

_The old wolf’s eyes grow clearer, more like how Ulf’s are right now. “I raised you to be better than this. I don’t want your fucking dirty money.”_

_Ulf’s paws ball into fists. “Harsh words from a guy who’s done way worse shit than I have.”_

_Dad hits Ulf again – this time it’s a punch to the side of his head, and Wolf can’t help but make a noise of pain as he sees it, feeling like the blow might as well have been aimed at himself. Neither of them must hear him, because neither look over. Instead, Ulf recovers and punches Dad – hard – in the stomach, causing the older canine to double over and fall the floor._

_Ulf stomps away to the door before turning back to face the fallen lupine, something almost like regret on his face, before leaving and slamming it behind him._

_Wolf waits a few seconds in shock before tentatively approaching the lupine on the floor._

_“…Dad?”, he asks tenderly, reaching his paw for his father’s shoulder._

_His father responds by instinctively slapping Wolf across the face, sending him reeling. Wolf sees stars for a few seconds, and as he moves his paw away from his nose he sees blood on it. He’s silent as he watches his dad weep on the floor. Wolf’s bloodied paw is shaking, but he sits down with his father anyway, trying to comfort him._

_Dad takes him in his arms with a hug and sobs on his shoulder, babbling incoherently. Wolf can’t tell if it’s an apology or not._

_He’s shocked and saddened to realize he can’t find it in himself to care either way._

……….

_Fox sees an Arwing parked outside of their house as he approaches and he lightens up a little, feeling a smile start to grow. The last few weeks have been boring and a little sad without his dad around. The neighbors have been taking him to and from the schoolhouse and popping in a lot, and he appreciates it, but it’s no substitute for a real parent._

_He finds the door already unlocked and walks inside, smile now writ large on his face. “Dad!”, he calls. “I’m home!”_

_He hears shuffling in the kitchen, and has to fight to keep himself from running the rest of the way. He turns the corner and walks inside to a surprise. His father isn’t there._

_Instead, it’s Uncle Peppy – it must have been the rabbit’s Arwing out front, he thought. Fox can tell something is wrong right away. The hare’s eyes are red and puffy, and he looks like he’s been through hell and back. Fox hasn’t seen Peppy look like this since Aunt Vivian passed._

_He recovers from his momentary shock and closes the distance with a few steps, placing a comforting paw on his uncle’s shoulder. “Peppy”, he asks. “What’s wrong?”_

_Peppy turns to him with a grave expression, and Fox feels his stomach sink like a stone._

_No, he thinks. No. Anything but that._

_“Fox…” The hare trails off before reciprocating with a comforting paw of his own. He takes a deep breath._

_“We need to talk.”_

_No. Please no._

_He must have said his thoughts out loud, because Peppy looks at him with such pain that Fox feels like the rabbit will collapse if he has to say anymore. But he continues regardless._

_“There was a mission on Venom. We… Oh God, I’m so sorry, Fox.” Peppy begins to cry – loud, swallowing, desperate sounds. “I’m so sorry.”_

_Fox feels his entire body shaking. He’s quaking in Peppy’s arms. Everything is broken, and off-kilter, and_ wrong _._

_He’s not sure if it’ll ever be right again._

……….

_Wolf is laughing around the bottle, letting himself relax as its contents warm himself from within. He’s never drank alcohol before, always scared to because of his dad, but he’s beginning to understand why so many people do it. It feels good._

_The Highwaymen are all riled up after another successful catch. Wolf isn’t a member of their pack – not yet anyway – but he’s been invited along to drink with them all the same. It makes himself feel very much like a proper adult, despite being barely into high school._

_Ulf is engaged in a drinking contest with his wingmate, the two wolves chugging their beer down as onlookers howl and holler. The junkyard they call their base is far enough away from anywhere that they can get as loud as they want._

_Wolf takes another swig, and feels his eyes trails one of the wolves in particular – Cam, the oldest of the bunch, who’s been doing this for two decades. He’s the one who taught Ulf everything he knew. Wolf’s gaze tracks him as he talks to some of the pack members, and Cam must notice him looking, because he meets Wolf’s wandering eyes and responds to them with a dangerous-looking smile._

_Cam approaches him and strikes up a conversation. One thing leads to another, and they’re out at the edge of the camp. Wolf’s never kissed anyone before. It feels exciting. But when Cam starts to move his paws lower, Wolf gets scared. He’s about to say something when Ulf finds them, his expression racked with rage._

_“What the FUCK are you doing!?”_

_Wolf thinks it’s aimed at him for a second before realizing his brother’s talking to Cam. Ulf punches the older lupine hard enough to knock him out with one hit. He stands over the unconscious lupine, breathing heavily, before looking up at Wolf._

_“Come on”, he says as he grabs his arm. “I’m getting you out of here. This was a bad idea.”_

_Wolf starts to protest but Ulf glares at him. “I don’t want you fucking up your life like… these people.” Ulf’s eyes close. “Like me.”_

_Wolf feels sad for his brother, but also doesn’t know what to say._

_It’s the last time they’ll see each other._

……….

_“’Almost perfect’ isn’t perfect”. The vulpine’s words are terse. Peppy says he’s being too hard on himself, but Fox knows better. He_ needs _to know better. To_ be _better. “’There’s no upward limit on improvement’. You told me that yourself.”_

_Peppy sighs, and it annoys Fox. “Yes, but you’re already flying circles around everyone else at the Academy. Even the instructors.” The hare sounds simultaneously proud and exhausted. “No one’s ever gotten a 99 on the dogfight simulator before. You’ve broken the record! And I sound like a broken record myself, telling you all this again.”_

_Fox can’t help the chuckle that escapes him, but he quickly readopts his hardened exterior. He needs it to shelter himself from the world, even if he won’t admit that to himself. “99 still isn’t 100.”_

_The lagomorph leans his head back into the chair and exhales, holding his position there for a moment before returning back to face Fox. “Fine. You can repeat the test again, if you feel you really have to._ But _”, he says before Fox gets a chance to feel truly triumphant. “As your guardian, I retain the right to tell you when you’re going overkill.” He pauses for a second, looking straight into Fox’s eyes from over his glasses. “You’re going overkill.”_

_Fox shrugs. “What’s wrong with overkill?”_

_“You’re going to burn yourself out”, Peppy responds. “And you’re too young for burnout.”_

_The vulpine goes silent for a moment. He only wants to look down at the test report – that taunting 99. ‘Almost perfect’._

_“I haven’t felt young in a long time”, he finally says. He doesn’t even know why he says it._

_He feels Peppy’s paw on his shoulder and looks up. “I know”, the rabbit says, and Fox knows It’s true. He does know. He’s one of the few who do. “But punishing yourself for James’ death isn’t what he would have wanted for you.”_

_“…I know”, he says quietly, praying the tears won’t escape. “I know.”_

_They sit like that for a while, there in Fox’s kitchen._

……….

_Wolf is bored._

_He’s been bored for the last half-hour. He used to find Andross’ speeches bearable – exciting, even, sometimes – but his patience with him has worn thin over the last few years. The ape was always prone to overtalking, but these days his pronouncements were landing well into the sphere of outright bloviation. Even if he agreed with most of what he was saying, he’d heard it so many times already. There were only so many ways you could rephrase the atrocities and injustices committed by Corneria before it just started to get dull._

_But Andrew is listening with rapt attention to his side, even going so far as to mouth along with some of Andross’ pithier, oft-repeated turns of phrase, earning an eyeroll from Wolf. Leon would make eye contact with Wolf sometimes when Andrew would really get into a propagandizing mood, and they’d grin at each other over it, though it made Wolf feel bad sometimes. Andrew was a good kid, deep down. He was just too into his uncle’s bullshit._

_The speech is winding down. He knows it is because Andross was beginning to detail the four-pillar plan for an ideal society, something he always did towards the end of his addresses. Wolf’s a little sad he and the rest of his team are behind the ape rather than down in the crowd. He thinks a lot of the magic of Andross’ energy is lost when you’re sitting in a chair and staring at his ass instead of looking up at him from below. He remembers the first time he’d seen Andross speak, standing a few steps up the Mania Ziggurat (an unfortunate, accidental entendre) in Venom’s capital, deriding the actions of Corneria. Wolf had been transfixed._

_He wonders what happened to that ape. Andross always straddled that line between genius and madness, but this last year he thought he might have finally stepped over it. A part of Wolf was worried about what would happen when Venom inevitably won the war, now that they’d taken Katina and the central planets were within their grasp. He didn’t see Andross surviving too much longer – someone was going to end up assassinating him. Then what would they do? Would the war start all over again?_

_He pushes these thoughts aside as Andross brings his hands down on the podium one last time before raising them above his head, earning a cheer from the audience._

_Wolf claps calmly along with them out of obligation, wondering who would be the one to pull the trigger._

……….

_“What’s an ‘extranet’?”, the vixen asks curiously, her blue pelt reflecting the light of the Great Fox’s hallway in such a way that makes it look like her fur is made of ice-capped ocean waves. Fox thinks it’s beautiful._ She’s _beautiful: like a natural spectacle, or a meticulously crafted piece of art._

_“It’s… Oh man, how do I explain this?”, he interrupts himself, paw behind his head. “It’s a network people use to communicate with each other. Using technology.”_

_Krystal tilts her head. “You might need to be more specific than that.” Her voice carries a hint of sarcasm._

_They’re sitting at a console on the bridge, on the way back from a mission out in Sector Z. She’s been with them for the last two weeks, ever since that thing on Sauria, but there’s still a lot about Lylat culture she doesn’t understand._

_“Here”, he says, handing her a portable desktop station. “Press the icon on the top left.” He chuckles as she taps on the symbol. “No, no – use the mouse.”_

_She stares at him like he’s gone insane. “…What mouse?”_

_Fox frowns. “Sorry, I forgot. That square pad there”, he indicates the trackpad. “We call it a mouse.”_

_“Why?”_

_“I… actually have no idea, come to think of it.” She laughs, a tinkling sound as clear her namesake, and uses the trackpad to open up the extranet. He lets her play around for a few moments. She obviously understands what it is now, seeing people post on social media, browsing news sites… but there’s a sad cast to her eyes._

_“What’s wrong?”_

_She turns to look at him. “We never had anything like this on Cerinia.” She looks back at the screen. “We didn’t_ need _anything like this. I’m just… struggling to imagine how hard it must be for your society. To not know what each other is thinking – feeling.”_

_Fox leans back in the chair. “To be honest, I’ve never thought of it that way”, he admits. “We seem to get by.”_

_She shoots him a cautious smile, and Fox realizes he likes it when she smiles. He wants to make her smile more often._

_“Hey”, he speaks up after another few moments of her idle browsing. “What are you up to this weekend?”_

……….

_“I tell ya, it’s the_ system _that’s broken.”_

_Wolf takes another drink from the bartender, eager to get as much of it down his throat as possible. He always struggles to put up with Pigma when the porcine launches into one of his political tirades without a hefty dose of hard liquor._

_Luckily, Sargasso has some of the hardest liquor around. He’s made sure of it, personally._

_“You have all these pissy little groups trying to outvie each other – well, they’re not_ little _, not really – but they’re little on the_ inside _, you know what I mean? Emotionally speaking. They’re made up of little people with little rules”_

_“Yeah”, he bites out between swigs._

_“Yeah, exactly”, Pigma continues. “Corneria, the Families – hell, even Andross was that way.”_

_Wolf feels his grip around the bottle tighten as Pigma dares to bring up fucking Andross of all fucking things as he’s trying to drink in piece._

_“So these little people have to enforce certain rules on society. Because society is big, you know? They have to make the breadth of possible animal experience smaller so their little selves can fit inside it without getting lost. They have to control everything – can’t just live and let live. They limit everyone because they’re limited themselves.”_

_Wolf polishes off the bottle with a frown. He wishes there was more of it. Oh, that’s right – he doesn’t have to wish because he owns the place. He signals the bartender for another._

_“But imagine if they were gone._ Poof! _” Pigma makes an annoying gesture with his hands that Wolf supposes is meant to signify all the governments of the galaxy spontaneously going up in smoke. “No more gods, no more masters. No more little rules. Every man free to do what he wills, and the only limits are the ones we put on ourselves.” The pork grins, and it turns Wolf’s stomach. “That’s my dream, man. I tell ya, that’s what life should be. We’re animals – the only limits we got are the ones nature saddled us with.”_

_Wolf is eyeing up one of his underlings sitting at the poker table off to the side of the lounge. He’s a fox with a gold-colored coat – too young for Wolf, really. Pigma has the fucking audacity to poke him in the shoulder, forcing him to turn away from the sexy vulpine and stare at the ugly fucking hog instead._

_“So, what’dya think?”, he asks with a manic grin._

_Wolf just stares at him for a second before replying. “I think you’re a fucking idiot.”_

……….

_“Don’t hesitate. When the time comes, just act!”_

_The words echo unbidden through Fox’s mind as he narrowly dodges another bout of energy blasts from the Aparoid Queen, launching into a barrel roll at the last possible second. Part of him, somewhere back in the depths of his mind, is aware their speaker is dead by now – along with the rest of Star Wolf, Peppy, General Pepper._

_The list of casualties goes on._

_He can’t stop their names from flashing in front of his eyes, blinding him with rage against this machine-mind that’s inflicted so much pain and devastation on Lylat. This machine-mind that dared to conjure a ghost-image of his father in a last bout of desperate manipulation._

_He does everything he can to stay calm, but it’s a struggle. He’s fighting this battle on two fronts now: with bombs and lasers against the beast in front of him, retreating ever deeper into the planet’s core, and in the halls of his own psyche. After a little while, it feels like those two fronts converge, molding into one singular fight. He’s barely even aware of his team’s chatter at this point, operating purely on instinct and muscle memory._

_It comes as a surprise when the shot that mortally wounds the queen pierces the soft flesh beneath her chitinous, metallic hide. The battle-frenzy fades, and he holds his Arwing steady as the self-destruct program begins its routine, chunks of the hive falling away around him._

_He sits still in that rain of dying synthetic life for a beat longer, a profound sense of hollowness permeating him._

_They won, but at what cost?_

……….

_His Wolfen is caught in a mass of tendrils extending from the walls of the planet, and he realizes this is the end. He doesn’t feel a sense of noble sacrifice so much as feels that he_ should _feel it. Their comms must be cut – he can’t get through to Leon and Panther. He wonders if they feel more fulfilled by this last bout of heroism than he does._

_Probably not._

_The tendrils snake their way inside the Wolfen. He bats at them, even shoots a few, but it’s no use. One of them snags his eye implant, and he’s rendered paralyzed by the pain. It’s using the neural link that connects the optic sensors to his brain to enter his mind. It’s suffering on a level he never even considered possible before as this external_ Thing _that’s fundamentally incompatible with natural life invades his thoughts, his memories, his emotions._

_Aparoid. That’s what it is. They’re wrong to refer to them in the plural. It’s all one thing: the queen, the foot-soldiers, even the planet. Its droning existence is cruel in its orderliness; and as the insectoid shimmering increases in potency outside his ship, he feels it begin inside his consciousness. He won’t be Wolf anymore in another minute. Hell, he won’t even be a Wolf-Aparoid._

_He’ll just be Aparoid, period. Another mass absorbed into the bulk._

_Death would be more noble than this. He’s using the last of his willpower to raise the blaster to his temple when the impression of a scream rings out inside his mind._

_The Aparoid is retreating, falling apart, dying._

_Holy shit, he thinks._

_Fox did it._

……….

_Fox all but collapses on the bench in exhaustion, letting out a ragged breath. They’ve successfully repelled the Anglar assault on Zoness, but he knows the battle’s not over yet. He just wants to relax, but a surge of guilt flares up inside him. The Anglars staged two simultaneous invasions of Zoness and Aquas, and he’d made the executive decision to respond to the battle here based on his team’s proximity._

_But now the post-battle fatigue is kicking in, along with the post-battle post-mortem. He’s questioning that decision now. Peppy’d commed him to say the Navy won against the Anglars on Aquas too, but apparently the fighting there was a lot harsher than on Zoness, the Anglars being led by an unreasonably ruthless and cunning general. Peppy said there was more to it than that, but told him they’d talk about it later, after Fox had a chance to relax._

_Regardless of the details, it wouldn’t be long until they took the fight to Venom. He hadn’t been there since he killed Andross. The thought of returning makes him nauseous._

_A figure approaches, and it takes Fox a second for his brain to catch up, hazy as it is. It’s Dash. Fox does his best to put on a congenial smile. The primate was a surprising boon during the battle, flying alongside Star Fox and almost matching them in ability. Part of Fox realizes he’s considering asking him to join them._

_“Hey, Fox.” Dash looks nervous. He always looks nervous, for some reason. It reminds Fox a little of Slippy. “How’re you holding up?”_

_Fox shrugs. “As well as I can be.” He stands up, even though he doesn’t want to, just to be polite. “You were great out there, you know.” And he means it._

_The ape laughs it off and awkwardly grabs his shoulder with one of his hands, massaging it. Fox recognizes it for the anxious tick it is. “I guess… we’re going to go to Venom now, right?”_

_Fox nods. “Probably within the next few days.” He turns to look at the steely-gray ocean beyond the platform. “Honestly, I don’t even know what this Anglar Emperor is thinking. He’s inflicted a lot of damage, but this campaign was doomed from the get-go.”_

_“Madmen don’t think. They just do.” Dash looks uncomfortable when he says this, but Fox nods. It’s surprisingly astute for a fresh-faced Academy graduate._

_“Listen”, Dash continues. “I… have to tell you something. Before we get to Venom.” He looks deeply unsettled, but finally locks gazes with Fox._

_“About my family.”_

……….

_Wolf knows he must look menacing walking down the street, putting off an unmistakable air of ‘don’t fuck with me right now’. He passes garish neon signs that stand in stark contrast with the dark gray of the metal that composes the establishments they adorn, and even more with the velvety starless darkness of the sky above. Restaurants, stores, offices – they all dress themselves up with bright colored lights, desperately trying to stand out, or maybe just proclaim their existence in the face of such a depressing environment._

_The dark side of Zoness is permanently swathed in night, and Wolf thinks it’s the perfect place for someone like him: running out of cash, running out of prospects, running out of friends. This last gig he and Panther worked was a total wash-out, and he was looking to drown the disappointment in some cheap alcohol – the worse-tasting, the better. He was in the mood to slum it up. Maybe he’d even find a willing partner to slum it up with him. He never had to work too hard for that as a rule._

_He walks into a dive off one of the side-avenues, one that looks promisingly grimy. He’s about to sit at one of the tables when something catches his eye: a flash of gold at the bar._

_He looks more closely, and feels a lopsided grin grow on his face._

_Of all the random possibilities._

_He sneaks up behind the vulpine, and makes eye contact with the bartender standing behind the counter._

_“I’ll have a Katinan Tall. Hold the pon juice.”_

_The lupine’s out of his seat and facing Wolf with a blaster…_

……….

_…Only he’s not, because that’s a memory. Something that happened months ago._

Wolf felt like crap, stuck between past and present, memory and the now. Odds and ends of his past experiences continued to phase in and out of his consciousness, but at least some part of him was anchored in reality again. He knelt up from the floor with a grunt, unsure why the visions ceased.

He realized someone was staring at him from down the hall. He jolted in surprise before relaxation began to settle in. It was only Krystal – they must’ve found a way around to rejoin him and Fox.

But something was wrong, and as his mind began to fully come alive again, more and more things became obvious.

Falco wasn’t with her. She smelled nothing like she usually did: a sort of wild and unclean odor. As the light of his helmet washed over her, he noticed her fur was teal rather than blue. He could tell this easily because she was stark naked, and emaciated. He panned up to her face, to find a middle-aged, haunted expression staring at him from under an unruly tangle of fur. An expression anchored by a pair of wild yellow-green eyes.

_Oh_ , he thought. _That’s not Krystal_.

It took another second before his mind caught up with him and he raised his blaster at the newcomer in warning. The vixen bared her fangs and let out a blood-curdling screech. As she stared at him with the ferocity of a wild beast, Wolf felt the memories begin to retake him, ensnaring him in their grasp.

With one last gasp of consciousness, he shot her in the shoulder, and she dropped to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for kudos and comments, criticism welcome as always.


	5. Chapter 5

# V

_“Fox…”_

He heard the voice echo inside his mind, unable to place where exactly it came from. He franticly tried to find it; but no matter which way he turned, everything stayed black. He couldn’t see anything – couldn’t feel anything.

_Dad…?_

The darkness started to abate as he opened his eyes, his body still feeling as if it was swirling inside a churning vortex despite obviously being laid down in a bed somewhere. It took another few seconds for the room to come into focus – his room, to be specific. He was back aboard the Great Fox.

Had it all been a weird dream?

He tried to move, but all he could accomplish was a half-hearted groan. He heard shuffling movement from outside his field of view, followed by a blue blur entering his line of sight, slowly solidifying into his teammate.

“Hey”, Falco asked him, sounding to Fox like he was speaking underwater. “You alright?”

He didn’t answer – didn’t know _how_ to answer, if he even could. He felt like he’d been run over by a truck. He opted for nodding in lieu of verbal communication.

The avian nodded back. “Cool. Everyone else is okay too. Just thought you should know.”

Fox tried to ask for further clarification now that some of the details were coming back to him – what happened back there on the abandoned station? Did they find anything? But every attempt just came out as another half-hearted whine.

Eventually, he gave up, and slipped back into sleep.

……….

The next time he woke up, the lights in his room were out. Someone must have turned them off, which further meant it was probably nighttime – insofar as ‘night’ existed in space, anyway. He felt much more cogent this time. That is to say, he felt like he’d only taken a double dose of sleeping meds rather than a quadruple one. He was about 90% sure he’d suffered the same type of psychic attack as the victims back on Lucy’s station – and yet here he was, apparently awake. Which meant they must have been successful on the mission, though hell if he knew how.

It was that thought that finally catalyzed his decision to get out of the bed despite his comparative grogginess and the distinct likelihood everyone was still asleep. He was the captain: he didn’t have the luxury of not having to know what was going on.

It took him a couple tries, but he finally managed to slide into a bathrobe and slippers and make it to his door, knowing full well he probably looked like an absolute mess. The hall lights were dimmed too, confirming his suspicion that it was the middle of the night. He groaned and stalked his way towards the bridge; if nothing else, ROB would be able to give him a status report on what had happened.

He was distracted from his nocturnal quest by the sound of rustling and low voices coming from the cafeteria. Curious, he peeked his head inside – a dumb gesture in retrospect, since the doors were automatic and audible, and therefore it was impossible to just ‘check in’ without being noticed – and found a pair of canines sitting at the counter together. Krystal and Wolf looked surprised by his appearance, but after a second the latter got up and walked over to him at the door, apparently intent to keep him upright.

“Hey”, Wolf asked, sounding pretty groggy himself, placing a comforting paw on Fox’s shoulder. “You sure you should be up?”

Fox nodded, then shook his head, then finally settled on a nod-shake combo. “No? I mean I probably shouldn’t be, but my desire to know what the hell happened beats out my desire to sleep.”

The lupine chuckled, and it rumbled down the length of his arm into Fox’s shoulder. “Great minds think alike, I guess”, he responded before gingerly guiding Fox to the counter. Fox was caught between appreciating the gesture and feeling flustered by it. Wolf held onto him as he settled onto one of the stools, and continued to lean over him from behind for a few seconds. Fox reveled in the contact.

Then he glanced to his right and felt embarrassed. Krystal was doing her best not to look over, but Fox suddenly felt like a terrible friend for making her sit through that without even thinking about the ramifications. His addled mind was partially to blame, but it didn’t shoulder all of it.

He was about to say something apologetic when she turned and spoke up herself. “So: the mission.”

Fox thought she was probably trying to focus on something other than Wolf, who was now rummaging in the fridge, so he nodded. He needed to hear this, anyway. “Go on.”

She settled herself into a more comfortable position and began to speak. “You and Wolf were both attacked mentally – though I’m sure you’re aware of that already”. He nodded, yes, he was _definitely_ aware of that unfortunate fact, and she continued. “Wolf managed to snap out of it for a second and injured the culprit with a blaster shot. Falco and I circled around through a network of hallways to find all three of you unconscious, and brought you all back to the Great Fox.”

She took a quiet sip of her tea as she let him digest the information before continuing. “The attacker is in custody right now. She’s being kept sedated by Slippy so she doesn’t wake up and attack anyone again.”

Fox stared at her for a second. “Alright. So, there was an actual person doing this? And we have her, what, in the brig?”

“The medbay”, Wolf stated, coming back with one of those awful, pasty ration packs in his paws. “And don’t listen to Krystal – there’s no way I just suddenly ‘snapped out of it’. She _let_ me wake up, I’m damn sure of it.”

Krystal looked at him curiously. “Why would she do that?”

Wolf only shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.” He paused for a beat as a cruel grin formed on his face. “Why don’t you ask her?” Krystal snorted a laugh in response.

“Okay”, Fox spoke up. “Obviously I’m missing something here. _Who_ is the attacker? And why did she attack us?” He thought for a second, absentmindedly scratching the top of his head with his paw. “…Actually, come to think of it, _how_ did she attack us?”

Wolf and Krystal looked at each other uncomfortably, and Krystal decided to answer. “We… don’t know. She doesn’t speak, as far as we can tell. We don’t think she’s mute per se, but she doesn’t seem to understand any languages.”

“What Krystal means is that she’s basically feral. Bit Panther when they tried to sedate her.” Wolf said this casually, in between bites of his midnight meal. “Least that’s what I’ve been told. I just woke up an hour ago myself, missed all the fun.”

“That’s awful”, Fox said. “How did she attack us then, though? Was she using some kind of technology?”

Wolf paused mid-bite, looking as if he was going to answer, but simply continued to eat his food. Krystal looked unsettled and took a deep breath before picking up the slack and answering herself.

“She’s a Cerinian”

The proclamation settled across the countertop, and Fox only had one thought.

“…Wow.”

The conversation died for a minute, the only sound in the room being the occasional sips of tea from Krystal and Wolf chomping down the ration. Fox finally summed up the courage to continue speaking. “I thought…”

“That I was the last of my kind?”, Krystal finished his sentence. “I was half-sure of that myself. I mean, rationally speaking, quite a few of us must have escaped besides me… but I’ve never run into another of my kind, not in all these years.” She shook her head, seemingly in disbelief. “But that might be irrelevant anyway. This… _attacker_ … she’s older than I am. That station is older than I am. And she doesn’t speak a word of Cerinian, or Cornerian, or anything. It’s a genuine mystery how she ended up there.”

The room went silent for a while again, and this time Wolf broke it. “What exactly happened to Cerinia anyway?” Groggy as he was, Fox shot him a look of warning – he really didn’t want Wolf to push Krystal’s buttons more than he already had.

But Krystal seemed unphased by his question. “I don’t know for certain – I was only ten when it happened, and my grasp of world events was limited. As far as I know, something happened to the planet’s core that rendered it unstable, and the entire world ended up imploding in on itself.” Her eyes bored into the countertop. “My parents put me on a small one-person ship beforehand. It was auto-locked into warping away, presumably because they either didn’t want me caught in the blast, or to bear witness to the psychic surge of anguish that would inevitably be released when the population lost their lives. Probably both.”

Wolf stared at her. “You ever go back?”

She nodded after a moment. “A few hours after it happened. There wasn’t anything stopping me from warping back, after all.” She lifted her eyes from the countertop. “The planet was already gone, rendered into a ball of fire and dust. I waited beyond the danger zone for several hours, hoping I’d find some other survivors, but no one ever came.” A sad smile grew on her face. “I can’t possibly have been the only one to escape – but like I said, I’ve never seen another Cerinian since.”

“…Until today”, Fox said quietly.

“Yes”, she affirmed. “Until today.”

He turned to face her. “Can I see her?”, he asked gently.

Krystal chewed on the side of her lip. “I’m not sure if you’d get anything out of it – she’s still sedated. And even if she wasn’t, she’s dangerous, and can’t communicate.”

“I know”, he said. “But I want to see her anyway.”

Krystal nodded. “Alright. Let me finish my tea first.”

……….

The vixen was just as unconscious as Krystal said she would be, but Fox felt like he needed to look at her anyway, though he wasn’t entirely certain why. Was it a desire to see another Cerinian? To look upon the face of the person who was willing to mentally attack people, including himself?

The assailant didn’t look very peaceful as she drifted in her medically-induced sleep. She looked malnourished, and her fur was coming out in places. There were so many questions raised by this woman that it made Fox’s head spin. Why didn’t she know how to speak? How did she wind up in an abandoned Cornerian research station? Why wasn’t the station on any space charts? How did she even _survive_ there?

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Obviously, she wasn’t going to be answering any of those questions – it was up to them to puzzle this mystery out. He started mentally drawing up a checklist of things they’d have to do to follow up on this, and it was enough to make him groan. He’d need to contact Peppy of course, as soon as it was a more reasonable time back on Corneria. _Someone_ in the Navy must have a record of what transpired here, right? They were currently en route back to Station 09, so Lucy would be learning all about this soon enough herself – presumably the other victims were already waking up by now.

Fox left the medbay distracted by these thoughts, and barely even noticed the lupine standing in front of his door before he almost bumped straight into him.

“Hey”, Wolf said, calm yet gruff, seemingly unwilling to move aside and allow Fox entrance to his own quarters.

“Hey”, he awkwardly responded back, tempted to finish what he almost accidentally started and fall into Wolf’s arms in a heap.

Turned out he didn’t have to though, because Wolf closed the distance and held him in a loose hug. Fox closed his eyes and nestled himself deeper into the lupine’s arms, limply linking his own around the other’s waist. Wolf gently laid his muzzle on top of Fox’s head and spoke. “We should get out of here”.

Fox chuckled into the lupine’s chest. He was so damn tired, and everything had a strange, dreamlike quality to it. “And go where?”, he responded, muffled.

He felt Wolf’s shrug around him. “I don’t know. Somewhere.” He lowered his muzzle to Fox’s neck, just barely kissing him, like a phantom endearment. “Want to spend some time alone with you.” His voice was barely audible in Fox’s ear.

Fox responded with a contented hum. “You’re needy, you know that?”

He felt the shape of Wolf’s grin against his neck. “ _You’d_ be needy if you had someone like you within reach like this, too.”

“How do you know I don’t?” The question was meant as a bit of playful banter, but it made Wolf freeze in his arms for a second. He suddenly remembered his discussion with Panther… was that only yesterday? His head started to spin a little. “But yeah.” He held onto Wolf even tighter. “You’re right. Let’s go somewhere.”

Wolf nodded into his shoulder. “Let’s go get your Arwing then.”

Fox chuckled again. “Not _now_ , Wolf. After the mission’s over.”

The lupine groaned, but Fox ignored it. “You know”, he ventured. “I want to go to bed.” When Wolf made a noncommittal noise in response, Fox tried to get a little more obvious, though he felt embarrassed to do so. “I want to sleep with you again.”

Wolf practically _purred_ in his arms and let one of his paws drift lower down Fox’s back, until it cupped his ass. “I mean _sleep_ , Wolf”, Fox clarified, unable to keep the hint of laughter from his voice. “I’m tired.” Wolf whined a little, but ultimately reneged. Fox guessed he was probably just as exhausted as he was, and was only acting more lucid for his benefit.

Fox opened the door to his quarters, and all but crashed onto his bed, Wolf coming up shortly behind him. The lupine held him from behind, and Fox fell asleep with a small smile on his face.

……….

There was quite the welcoming party on standby by the time they reconnected with the station – by all accounts, the victims looked healthy, or at least awake. Wolf stood to the back of the group and let Fox take the brunt of their thanks, unwilling to put himself in the line of fire for something like that. It was Star Fox that really handled everything – he’d just happened to be the one to shoot the assailant.

No such luck though, apparently. Falco of all people shoved him forward and made him shake hands with the thankful animals; one of whom – a robin – was even _crying_ , which made him profoundly uncomfortable.

Lucy mercifully stepped in and started to talk with Fox and Krystal, peppering them with questions and getting confused non-answers. Looked like no one on the station even knew there was another, abandoned one so nearby. It gave Wolf a dark feeling in the pit of his stomach. Corneria had made its own share of ethically limber decisions in the past, and he wondered if they ever truly stopped making them or just got more secretive with it over the years.

When the rabbit came to thank him personally for incapacitating the attacker, he couldn’t keep himself from voicing his own thoughts, consequences be damned. “You’re lucky she let me out of her net – it was total happenstance. We all could’ve been trapped and slowly died out there.” Damn him and his big mouth.

To his surprise, she looked sufficiently cowed by his statement, though he could see Fox shaking his head at him in disbelief from the corner of his eye. Who was he to judge though? He hadn’t seen himself during her attack – hadn’t seen himself writhe on the ground like a worm at the hands of the assailant. Wolf felt no guilt for shooting her, and certainly felt no guilt for telling Lucy off. “I can’t thank all of you enough for what you’ve done”, she said. “You all took such a hefty risk for us. I can’t repay you.”

And damn him again, now he felt a little guilty for beating up on her. “You’re welcome”, he said quietly. He awkwardly placed a paw on her shoulder and nodded at her before he walked on, hoping the gesture would suffice as an apology, because he didn’t have it in him to say ‘sorry’ right now. He was still damn angry about all of this. Secret Cornerian labs, what looked to be a kidnapped psychic…

Fox in danger.

He stood by one of the large windows lining the far wall, gazing out across the seemingly endless asteroid field, wondering what other horrible secrets were hiding out there. Krystal approached him and stood by his side. He didn’t know how to feel about how much time they’d spent together over the last day or so – didn’t know if he _wanted_ to know how he felt.

“I wanted to thank you, again. For stopping her.” Her eyes traced back to the group behind her. “For saving Fox.”

Wolf grunted. “Don’t mention it.” He didn’t look at her when she spoke, still literally staring out into space. He wondered again how much she knew about everyone around her – if she knew more about them than they even did themselves. If it was a burden to her, and if so, how much of one. If she knew he was thinking about all of this right now. “Fox told me he commed Peppy. Said Hare had no idea about the station, and was trying to find someone who did.” His paw twitched. He wished he had a cigarette. “Sounds like this keeps happening, to me. Your government not even knowing what its other wings are up to.”

“It’s _not_ my government.”

He half-turned and raised a single brow at her, and she sighed. “I mean… it _is_. Now, I suppose. I’m just…”

“…Not sure you want to associate yourself with a planet that uses your people as science experiments?”

She worried her lip. “…Do you think that’s the case?”, she asked anxiously. This must have been eating at her all night. “I mean, it certainly _looks_ like that’s the case, but I just don’t know. And with Peppy not knowing…”

Wolf didn’t know what to do. He knew he should be comforting her, telling her it was all fine, but…

“Honestly? Yeah.” So much for comfort; apparently he couldn’t make himself lie, even for the sake of easing a friend’s worry. “Corneria did a hell of a lot of crazy shit before the Lylat War broke out. Our Cerinian friend old enough to predate that, easily.”

Krystal folded her arms and looked out across the expanse of Meteo. “But how did she _survive?_ ” She glanced to Wolf. “And why did she let you wake up?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t lying earlier: I have no idea.” He heaved a sigh. “Look – sometimes this happens. You get faced with mysteries you never solve. If Peppy doesn’t know shit about that place, and neither does anyone else around him, then realistically? It was probably scrubbed from the record: real secret, black project type stuff. Everyone who worked on it is probably either long-dead, or dedicated to never speaking about what they did. Sometimes shit just pans out that way.” He leaned against the glass, and turned to face Fox and the rest of the group, still exchanging pleasantries and thanks. “Sometimes you don’t get a neat, tied-up ending.”

She looked at him pointedly. “Why, Wolf”, she said after a moment. “One almost gets the sense you might be a pessimist”.

A mischievous smile graced her face, and Wolf couldn’t help but meet it with a grin of his own. “Nothing wrong with a bit of pessimism.”

She shook her head. “No. _But_ , too much of it isn’t healthy. You’re wrong: you and Fox will be fine.”

He turned his head to face her. “Yeah?”

“Yes”, she nodded. “I believe so. And one other thing?”

At his questioning expression, she continued. “You’re wrong about this mystery being unsolvable.” She began to walk away, and looked back to glance at him one last time before leaving. “We just need the right tools to solve it.”

“Yeah?”, he asked after her. “And what are those?”

The ghost of a smile lit her face as she left.

……….

The door to the Great Fox’s medbay closed slowly behind her. It was a small room, with only two cots. State-of-the-art, though – there was no denying the Cornerian government spared no expense in ensuring Star Fox had the best medical coverage it could receive from computer-automated tools and services.

The government that spent so much to keep them safe was the very same that was doing _something_ with the Cerinian before her. The thought filled her with an unplaceable sort of unease – it had been all night. Wolf had made his thoughts on the matter clear, and they more or less lined up with what Slippy had guessed shortly after they’d brought her on board.

But Krystal just couldn’t rationalize the idea of Corneria doing something so out-and-out _foul_. Not the same Corneria guided by people like Peppy, or even General Pepper.

_But Corneria_ wasn’t _guided by people like Peppy and Pepper thirty years ago_ , her mind reminded her. She had little knowledge of what the situation in Lylat had been like back then, having been born far away from Corneria and not even being alive at the time. The copious histories she’d read indicated the time was mostly peaceful, but with a burgeoning bubble of tension growing beneath the surface – one that finally popped and resulted in the Lylat War.

Histories were one thing, though – personal testaments were another. And everything she’d heard from so many people at this point pointed to the presence of an additional layer of conflict beneath the readily apparent exterior. A very different Corneria from that which people saw: a Corneria of shadows and blood.

This couldn’t wait any longer, she realized. It was a positively _reckless_ thing she was about to do, but it had to be done nonetheless if she wanted to achieve any modicum of peace.

She needed answers, and there was only one source that could provide them.

Krystal slowly extended her paws to the comatose vixen’s head. She looked so much like a passerby she might have seen as a child: the vibrancy of her naturally emerald-colored fur, the deep-set eyes, the high-angled cheekbones; the latter two rendered even more pronounced by her obviously malnourished state. Krystal idly wondered what she’d even eaten while on the station. She’d survived by keeping to an oxygen-sealed part of the abandoned station, but there hadn’t been a noticeable food source.

Putting this distraction out of her mind, she cautiously laid her paws on the Cerinian’s head.

She took a deep breath, and dove in.

……….

_She realizes the memory has a strange texture to it almost immediately._

_Krystal is used to things like this at this point. Memories are never perfect, especially ones from early childhood. There are all sorts of gaps and missing pieces, along with elements more emotionally pronounced in the memory than they truly were in reality. People might not even realize this about their own memories themselves – but for an outsider like Krystal, it’s obvious._

_The memory’s fabric is further obfuscated by the unknown vixen’s lack of knowledge. The vixen hears people speak Cornerian around her and fails to understand the language, whereas Krystal can understand it perfectly. But the vixen remembers it only as random sound rather than words, which colors the memory deeply, so Krystal has to fight to gleam what she can._

_The vixen is floating in a cylindrical glass container, and Krystal recognizes her surroundings as the lab they found on the abandoned station. It’s equally as austere and unwelcoming in the memory; but here, it’s at least filled with life and activity. There are researchers everywhere, at every console and station. The vixen sees others like her floating in giant tubes to her left and right. She remembers nothing before this – it’s her first memory._

_Which means she was born here. Inside this glass cylinder._

_Krystal moves across the vixen’s lifespan, skimming through years of memory, most of it spent inside a tube. She neither eats nor sleeps – she has no need to, wasn’t designed to need to._

_One day, a few of the scientists take her out of the tube, making incomprehensible noises as they do so (noises Krystal understands: words of comfort and reassurance). They already took the other foxes over the course of the last few weeks._

_They never come back._

_The vixen is walked down the hallway to a brightly-lit, padded room, where she’s left to her own devices for an unknown period of time – for ‘time’ means nothing to her, and she cannot gauge what she does not know or understand. The only things she does understand are emotion, and memory, and mind, though she doesn’t know the words for any of those. She feels them, effortlessly, in all the researchers that surround her in this metal hive._

_A man enters the padded room, and he scares her, because he is a mystery. She cannot read him. She cannot feel him. It’s the one thing she generally knows, yet he is unknowable._

_The vixen doesn’t know this man, but Krystal does. She’s horrified, and she hopes her horror doesn’t color the memory further and awaken the vixen._

_The ape looks well put-together, a genteel enough expression on his face, with a white mane framing his head. The only really remarkable thing about him is an idiosyncratic piece of headgear: a circlet made out of a strange, sinewy material that Krystal realizes must be made from the neural material of a Goras._

_“Good morning, Bella”, he tells the vixen, though she can’t understand him. “Are you doing well?”_

_No response._

_“That’s fine”, he continues. “You don’t need to say anything. I’m the lead scientist on this project – you can call me Andy.” He extends his hand towards her, and the vixen shies away from it, afraid of his unreadability._

_For the ghost of a second Krystal sees a hint of rage in the ape’s eyes, but he quickly calms himself. “It’s alright – we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.”_

_The years pass in a blur._

_The vixen meets Andy once a week, in between attempts to teach her to use her mind as a weapon that range from wildly successful to utterly fruitless. They never teach her to speak, but she understands commands. She is an animal, a dog of war, and the scientists are her masters._

_And she wants to impress no master more than Andy the Unknowable. He’s her favorite. He gives her treats, scratches her under the ears, sometimes even plays games with her._

_It’s in the middle of one of those games – he holds up a card and tells her to draw what’s on the other side in as much detail as she can – when another scientist barges into the room unannounced. Andy’s face grows cold and cruel as he turns to the intruder._

_“Dr. Oikonny”, the dog says, “…it’s begun.”_

_Andy’s expression changes into something colder still, and he looks at her one last time. “Do they know our position?”_

_“No, sir”, the scientist shakes his head._

_“Good.” Andy stands up from the padded floor. “Begin evacuation proceedings immediately, and ready my ship. We make for Venom as fast as possible.”_

_“Of course, sir.” The canine stands a moment longer, staring at the still-seated vixen. “…Sir, if I may ask… what do you plan on doing with her?”_

_Andy looks at her appraisingly, hand on his chin. “Corneria’s already hunting them; the children are incapable of masking their mental presence, and it makes them stand out like beacons in the night. If we bring her along, it’ll lead them right to us.”_

_The scientist looks uncomfortable. “Should we dispose of her, then? Like the others?”_

_Andy shakes his head. “No, no – she’s a success. We don’t waste assets.” He walks towards the door. “Leave her here. We’ll come back for her after the war, if she’s still alive.”_

_The dog swallows. “You… think there will be war, sir?”_

_The ape only laughs as he leaves the room, the scientist right on his tail. “I will make sure of it.”_

_She’s left alone now, though that is nothing unusual. She’s often left by herself. When she feels all the pinpoints of life that make up the people onboard the station depart one-by-one, she thinks nothing of it – at least not at first._

_A day passes, then another, then another, day on top of day, week on top of week, month on month. She grows restless. She grows lonely._

_She wants Andy._

_Where is Andy._

_She’s looking for him now, reaching everywhere she can. One time a ship comes near her station and she reaches out to it, catching one of the people onboard and holding them still while she combs through their memories, searching, hunting for Andy. The unknowable. Her keeper._

_But she doesn’t find Andy in the dog-pilot’s memories, no matter how hard she looks. The ship leaves, and no one comes by again, not for a very long time._

_Years pass, and she spends every day in a haze now. Andy, Andy, Andy. Where is Andy._

_After a period of time she cannot reckon, cannot comprehend, people return. She feels them, sees them. She begins again, like she did with the dog-pilot. Catching them, holding them down, looking for Andy. Where is Andy._

_But she cannot find him._

_Until people are here. Here, on the station. In her home. One of them must know Andy, otherwise why would they be here? The fox fights a monster that looks a little like him, but it’s not Andy – Andy wasn’t a monster. The wolf has memories too, memories of sadness and pain and_

_Andy. It’s Andy. The wolf knows Andy._

_She lets him go, lets him out of the dream. She approaches him. He knows Andy. How does he know Andy. Where is Andy._

_The wolf hefts a blaster at her. She doesn’t know the word for blaster, but she knows what it is, what it does. She snarls, and he shoots her._

_It makes her mad as she falls unconscious._

_She only wants Andy._

……….

Krystal’s paws were still shaking when she let the vixen – _Bella_ , though the Cerinian herself didn’t know that was her name – go. Waves of nausea had been pulling away and crashing against her ever since she first saw Andross in the memories.

And it _was_ Andross: of this she was sure. She’d seen enough stills of the ape in news pieces and history texts to recognize him. It was common knowledge that he was a high-ranking research scientist with Corneria prior to the Venomian secession. It was also common knowledge that he’d done _something_ involving biotechnology that finally crossed the line and prompted the Cornerian government to attempt to arrest him, though no one knew exactly what – it was a source of countless conspiracy theories.

But after this, Krystal thought she had a solid idea of what it was: what he’d done that was finally too much for Corneria to stomach. She looked down at the Cerinian clone laying sedated in front of her: genetically edited to not need food or sleep to sustain herself. Designed by a madman with the intent of creating a living weapon.

Did Andross come up with the idea himself, or had he merely been doing Corneria’s bidding? It was a Cornerian station he was working on, after all, staffed by Cornerian scientists.

Krystal couldn’t handle it anymore. The tension was breaking her.

She left the room with one last look back at ‘Bella’, and the thought that Andross had done the same thing set her to quivering.

……….

“Make sure you don’t go silent on me again”, Lucy said as she hugged Fox goodbye. “Believe it or not, I actually _do_ want to be involved in your life.” She smirked. “As crazy as that sounds.”

Fox chuckled and awkwardly stuffed his paws into his pockets. “I do, too”, he said after a beat. “…I’m sorry for leaving you hanging so long like that.” His smile feels sad – forced.

Lucy waved her paw dismissively. “I didn’t try to reconnect either – I’m as much to blame for it as you are.” Her smile looks genuine. “We both just got a little…”

“…Busy”, Fox answered for her as she trailed off.

“We won’t let it happen again”, she said with a relaxed smile – and with that, she was off, moving down the line to speak with the rest of his team.

Fox heard Wolf approach him as she walked away, that sauntering gait of his so distinct he couldn’t mistake the sound of it for anyone else’s. “We wrapping up here, then?”, he asked, paw tentatively placed on Fox’s shoulder, feeling as if it was seeking permission to be there, as if Fox would ever consider not allowing it.

“Yeah – guess so.” He took a quiet, deep breath through his nose, wondering when – if ever – he’d get the chance to truly relax, and if he even wanted to.

Lucy was saying bye to Krystal now, the two animals hugging each other closely, and Fox wondered how he and Lucy had managed to drift apart over the years so thoroughly that the lagomorph was by all accounts closer with someone she’d only met a few years ago.

“I’m a bad friend”, he said out loud, unsure if he was talking to Wolf or himself.

The lupine snorted. “You’re determined to look for the worst in yourself, is what you are.” Wolf went suddenly silent after saying that, his grip tightening on Fox’s shoulder, seemingly unaware he was even doing it.

“Wolf?”, Fox asked cautiously.

“…It’s nothing”, he responded. “I just need to think about some stuff.”

Fox turned around to face the lupine, looking deeply into his eyes – one violet and downcast, lost in thought, and the other impossible to read due to its cybernetic nature. “Hey”, he said, subtly taking Wolf’s paw into his own. “You want to talk with someone, I’m here.”

Wolf looked up into his eyes, and for a split-second Fox thought he saw a look of equal parts thankfulness and guilt, but it was gone as soon as it revealed itself, a lopsided grin growing in its place. “Don’t get all schmaltzy on me, McCloud.”

Fox made an indignant noise. “Well all right then, _O’Donnell_.” He let Wolf’s paw go with a grin of his own. “Excuse me for opening myself up to you.”

Wolf laughed then, and playfully punched him in the shoulder. “Come on, pup.” He looked at the rest of the group. “Looks like we’re out of here.”

Fox took in his team intermingled with Wolf’s. Krystal and Lucy promising to catch up; Falco with arms folded, trying to look unaffected; Slippy and one of the scientists – Harry, Fox thought it was – trading contact details; Panther obviously flirting with the no-longer-comatose robin researcher; Fay talking the ear off of a confused-looking Dr. Ostheim.

He felt proud.

“Yeah”, he said with a nod. “Let’s go home.”

……….

The maze of asteroids called Meteo was finally behind them, the Great Fox free once more to warp where it willed. Fox was headed to the kitchen to meet with the others – they were planning to discuss their next moves – when Krystal surprised him and headed him off around a corner.

He quickly recovered from the shock with a laugh. “Christ, you scared me.”

She looked horrified. “I’m so sorry – I didn’t mean to.”

Fox cocked his head. It wasn’t unusual for Krystal to catch people off-guard, silent as she was; she didn’t usually look this worried about it though. They usually laughed it off. “You okay?”

He wasn’t sure why he bothered asking: the answer was obviously ‘no’, just by looking at her. He felt a stone settle in the pit of his stomach. “Krystal”, he continued before she had a chance to respond. “I’m sorry.”

Now it was her turn to look confused. “About me and Wolf, I mean. How… you know… _public_ we can be. It must be hard on you. I promise we’ll try to…?” He trailed off as she started giggling. Now he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she wasn’t alright. “Krystal?”

She shook her head at him. “Fox – I’m fine with you and Wolf together”, she reassured him, offering her paw. He lightly grasped it with his own. “Yes, it’s… _difficult_ , sometimes, to watch the two of you. But I would never – _ever_ – want you to hide that. Not for me, not for anyone.” She smiled at him. “I just needed some time to adjust.”

Fox swallowed, and felt himself trying to fight the nascent tears at the corners of his eyes. It hit him then – _really_ hit him – how much the situation between him, Krystal and Wolf had been torturing him. How he felt as if he was being forced to choose between his lover and his best friend, and how he was worried it would all come to a head and he’d have to lose one of his closest people forever.

“Krystal, I…” He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to say what he didn’t know what to say. She didn’t let him struggle for long, opting to draw him into a hug.

“You don’t have to say anything”, she said quietly. “I understand.”

He let the tears flow. Not _too_ many – he was the captain, after all; didn’t do to break down in the hallway of his own ship. But there were enough.

They let each other go after a moment, and Fox rubbed the last remnant of moisture from his muzzle with a sniff, and Krystal just looked him with an almost motherly smile. “What am I going to do with you?”, she asked jokingly.

Fox snorted one of those inevitable post-cry laughs: a halting thing, broken yet whole. “Hopefully continue to be my friend”.

They chuckled, and as he returned to normalcy, he remembered how they’d ended up meeting for this impromptu hallway catharsis session in the first place. “So… what’s got you on edge?”

Her expression dropped. “For a moment, I forgot”, she said, almost to herself. She sighed deeply. “It’s about the Cerinian.”

Fox was surprised, though he knew he shouldn’t have been. With all that happened, he almost managed to forget about their medically comatose captive, en route to Corneria so they could turn her over to Peppy. “What about her?”

Krystal frowned. “I… may have perused her memories.”

Fox bit back his sudden instinct to chew her out. Instead, he spoke measuredly. “That was dangerous.”

She grimaced. “I know. But it was the only way we were ever going to learn anything about her. I don’t expect you to approve, but I do expect you to understand.”

He nodded against his better judgment. She was right, after all. If she hadn’t done that, odds were they would never actually figure out who the Cerinian was, where she came from, or what had happened to that station. “Alright”, he said after a moment to adjust to his teammate’s reckless behavior, putting it behind him and donning his metaphorical captain’s hat. “What did you learn?”

Krystal folded her arms. “More than I bargained for”, she said ominously. “She was a genetically edited clone – one of several grown on that station. They were bio-weapons: remote viewers and psychic shock-troopers designed for war.” She paused and let Fox take it in. “Andross was the lead scientist on the program.”

Fox froze. He was expecting something bad, but he hadn’t expected something _that_ bad. The more he thought about it though, the more the pieces began to fit together. He felt a headache coming on.

“ _Oh geez_ ”, he said, putting his paw to his head. “I need to comm Peppy again.”

“What did he say the first time?”

He let the paw drop. “Peppy couldn’t find any records of a station being there, so he asked Hugin about it – and _he_ couldn’t find anything either. He started throwing a fit after that, according to Peppy.” He chewed the inside of his cheek. “I’m guessing the LCI are going to be all over that place soon enough. I hope they don’t give Lucy’s team too much hassle about it.”

Krystal leaned against the wall in the hallway, arms folded, looking at him carefully. “It doesn’t seem odd to you that neither the Cornerian Navy _or_ the LCI have any records on one of their own secret projects?”

“What do you mean ‘one of their own’… _Oh_.” Fox sighed. “I’m sorry – sometimes I forget how you weren’t around back then.” He felt uncomfortable, as he always did when discussing the situation before the war – before what happened to… He fought it down, and explained.

“The Lylat War was messy. _Really_ messy. It didn’t start with Venom’s declaration of secession. Hell, it didn’t even start with Andross fleeing to Venom in the first place. The whole system was in a state of underground fighting for years before that, with different branches of the government all but at war with each other. There were so many assassinations, disappearances…”

Krystal nodded. “I’ve read about it.”

“Yeah, but the official histories leave a lot of stuff out”, he continued. “I don’t think most people realize how divided Corneria was at the time. Andross was in charge of the Science Council, and they basically had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted in secret – they never left a paper trail, so there weren’t any records. Corneria spent _years_ after the war hunting down his old facilities and shutting them down.” He looked at the floor. “They missed one, obviously.”

She took it in with arms folded, a disturbed expression on her face. “I wasn’t aware the situation was ever so tenuous.”

Fox leaned against the wall next to her. “Most people aren’t – the details are still classified. Pepper made sure of that himself.” He smiled a little bashfully. “I think he still feels a little guilty.”

Krystal turned to look at him. “Why?”

“Because he’s technically the one who started the war. Or at least, he’s the one that took it out of the shadows.” Krystal raised her brows and he continued. “Pepper mutinied against the top general of the Navy, alleging he was corrupt and in bed with Andross – which was true. After he took over, he started publicly cracking down on Andross’ allies and ordered a manhunt to find the ape. That was what finally chased Andross to Venom, beyond Cornerian jurisdiction – and the rest was history.”

Krystal’s expression turned a little pained. “I… think I saw that happen, in the Cerinian’s memories.”

Fox grimaced. He wasn’t sure what to say that, if anything.

“They found him by tracing the clone’s psychic signature”, she continued. “I wasn’t aware that was possible.”

He frowned. “Neither was I.”

They stood side-by-side for a moment longer, pondering the past. “Peppy can wait”, Fox said. “I really don’t feel like dealing with this right now.”

Krystal chuckled. “Skimping out on work?”

“Just prioritizing.” He shrugged. “The station’s not going anywhere, and everyone else is probably already waiting up for us.”

She nodded. “Fair enough.” She began to walk towards the kitchen, and he followed.

“You’re okay, right?”, he asked. “About the Cerinian situation?”

It took her a little while to answer, and when she finally did, it was with a quiet tone of voice.

“I don’t know.”

……….

“So, uh… I just wanted to, um…”

Slippy often had trouble speaking in front of a group of people, even if said group was just his team. Fox wondered if maybe the addition of Star Wolf was making it even more difficult than usual.

They were all seated in the Great Fox’s combination kitchen/lounge save for the amphibian himself, who’d stood up in the middle of a lull between the two teams’ discussion of what to do next: where to acquire new fighters for Star Wolf, how they’d schedule missions with only one home ship – on and on it went. Slippy’s decision to deliver an impromptu address was a welcome, if unexpected, change of pace.

“Out with it, Slippy”, Falco ventured from his position on the seat across from the frog, arms behind his head and legs stretched out on an ottoman.

Slippy swallowed and fumbled around with his pockets, eventually drawing a handful of paper envelopes. “I just wanted to take this moment to… _umm_ … here.” He started passing them out to everyone. Wolf shot Fox a confused look – he returned it with a shrug. He was as clueless as the lupine.

He heard a sudden intake of breath from Krystal, the first to open it. “Oh, _Slippy_.” She got up and hugged him – he awkwardly reciprocated. “I’m so happy for you.”

Fox was already halfway through reading his own copy. A mixed tableau of emotions played out inside his mind.

Slippy and Amanda had finally set a date.

“You didn’t have to send us a formal invitation, you know”, Falco said obnoxiously – though the avian was obviously trying to fight down a smile of his own.

Slippy laughed nervously. “Yeah, I know. But… It felt like I should?”

“I’m surprised we were included.” Fox looked over to see that – yes – Wolf had received an invitation too, along with Panther and Fay.

“What the captain means to say is ‘we’d be delighted to attend’”, Panther smoothed over.

“Yeah!”, Fay added. “It’s been _so long_ since I’ve been to a wedding. Last time I went to one, someone _died!_ ”

Slippy’s face paled visibly, and Krystal had to elbow him a bit in the side to get him speaking again. “ _Ha ha_ … yeah…”

“Don’t worry: he wasn’t like, murdered, or anything”, she continued. “He just got food poisoning.”

This apparently wasn’t doing anything to calm Slippy’s nerves, and Wolf stepped in. “I think that’s enough, Fay”, he said, paw on her shoulder. He looked at Slippy. “Guess I should say ‘congrats’, Froggy Boy.” He clicked his tongue, thinking it over. “I’ll save it for the big day, though.”

Fox took in the contents of the letter again, letting it settle in. A month. Slippy was going to be getting married – and leaving Star Fox – in a _month_. He got up and approached the amphibian himself, and almost extended his paw for a shake before thinking better of it and hugging him instead.

“I’m real proud of ya, Slips.”

Slippy awkwardly patted his back. “Thanks, Fox.”

They broke apart, and Fox decided to shelve any reservations he might have had about what a Star Fox without Slippy would look like – what it would feel like. There’d be time enough for that later.

No. For now:

“I think this calls for a celebration”, Fox stated. Falco assented eagerly, and Fox noticed Wolf perk up at the slightest, subtlest suggestion of alcohol. “What do we have onboard?”

Krystal went over to the cabinet to locate a bottle of something, and Falco busied himself with looking for glasses. “We have wine, of course”, Krystal started listing off. “Vodka, rum… _oh_.” She fished out a bottle of the stuff Fay brought them. “Should we try this?”

Fox shrugged. “Why not?”

Fay seemed excited by the prospect as Krystal began to pour the (somewhat more viscous than Fox expected) alcohol. “Bet you guys have never had real, proper squiskey before! This stuff’s the best.”

They all took a glass in hand, and Fox led them in a toast. “To Slippy.” He made sure to look the frog in the eye. “Best teammate a guy could ask for.”

“Here, here!”, Falco chimed in.

They all took a sip –

– and Fox immediately spat his out, along with most of the group. Wolf drank his and kept it down – barely – shivering the whole way. Fay looked unphased.

“ _W-what the fuck_ is _this!?_ ”, Wolf demanded.

Fay gave him a look like he was uncultured. “Grade A squiskey, that’s what.”

“It’s disgusting”, Panther said casually, the same way someone might describe a shade of paint.

“Here, here…”, Falco chimed in.

“Fay”, Krystal asked curtly. “May I ask what this… squiskey… is made of?”

“Of course!”, Fay said after taking a second sip. “It’s fermented from fungal spores that grow on the inner linings of Cornerian sea-squids’ colons.”

Slippy paled even more than he did when Fay mentioned the sudden death. “I don’t feel so good”, he said queasily, before trotting off towards the restroom.

Wolf caught Fox’s eye and winked, a somewhat ridiculous gesture seeing as he only had the one biological eye. “To the happy couple”, he said, before promptly taking another drink of the squiskey.

Fox sighed deeply.

“I need a break.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that concludes Memories in Meteo. Now for a series/status update and important question to all you readers:
> 
> I'm currently in the middle of writing an unrelated (as in not Star Fox) moderate length one-off story; about 2/5 of the way done right now, I believe. HOWEVER, there are two possible options right now for continuing Worlds of Lylat, and I left it open at the end of this story: I can continue as planned and jump right into Story #6, which will be a massive plot-driven entry (the longest so far) which marks the rough "halfway point" of the general outline I have for the series - OR - I can make that Story #7 instead, and write another spicy Fox/Wolf-centric single-chapter entry as #6.
> 
> I genuinely have no preference on how to proceed; either option works equally well for me. Which is why I'm leaving it up to all of you! I'm going to continue working on that other story over the next week, and during that time period I'll tally up the responses in the comments here. Whichever option gets the most comments in favor of it - Short'n'Spicy Fox/Wolf, or jump right into the next big one - will be the one I choose to proceed with. So be honest and choose what you really want!
> 
> Thanks for kudos and criticism as always, don't be afraid to ask questions, and definitely say what you want for the next story, whether ye be lurker or regular commenter. Have a nice few weeks!


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